Michael Fuchs National ethics councils - Deutscher Ethikrat

Michael Fuchs National ethics councils. Their backgrounds, functions and modes of operation compared
VIII. The role of national ethics councils in
the inter-state and international bioethics
debate
The statutory mandate of the Italian commission includes maintaining links with
similar bodies in other states, in the European Union and in the Council of Europe.
The German National Ethics Council is charged with the same task by decision of the
Cabinet. This function is also performed by most other national committees.
1. COMETH
A framework for international discourse between representatives of national ethics
councils was first established by the Council of Europe. Commencing with a conference
in Madrid in 1992, it was decided to hold biennial meetings. In accordance
with the first resolution of the Conférence Européenne des Comités Nationaux
d’Ethique (Standing Conference of European Ethics Committees) in 1999, an annual
frequency was adopted. In addition to official national councils, “similar bodies”
are admitted.
Although some of the initiators at first aspired to create a Europe-wide body, the
more modest role of cooperation and exchanges was already agreed in Madrid. The
Council of Europe wished at the same time to assume the function of gathering information
on the work of the committees. Sonia Le Bris’s study Les instances nationales
d’éthique was published as long ago as in 1993. In spite of the decision to
continue this work, it was not until 2000 that the consolidated results of a more recent
survey of member states were presented, in the form of a brief report by Sandrine
Sabatier. The reliability of the published data depends on that of the organizations
approached in the member states. For this reason, some member states have undertaken
initiatives of their own to compile a comparative review. A report covering seven
states was commissioned in France by the Senate and published in April 2001. The
regular reports in the Rubrique internationale of the Cahiers du CCNE and the Journal
international de bioéthique are even more important. In Germany, the Commission
on the Law and Ethics of Modern Medicine of the 14th Electoral Term of the Lower
House of the German Parliament held a hearing with seven representatives of national
ethics bodies in other European countries and commissioned comparative reports
on the treatment of dissenting positions within these bodies.
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At European level, there have been initiatives not only from the Council of Europe
but also from the European Commission. The Secretariat of the European Group on
Ethics in Science and New Technologies issued its first newsletter in February 2003,
on the activities of national ethics councils. A second newsletter was published in December
2003. Göran Hermerén draws attention in his editorial to the importance of
exchanging information in view of the enlargement of the EU. The Commission
plans to promote exchanges between national ethics councils in the future.
Website
COMETH: http://www.coe.int/T/E/Legal_Affairs/Legal_co-operation/Bioethics/COMETH
2. Global Summit
The first international summit was held as late as in 1996. Organizations were invited
to San Francisco by the NBAC. Further meetings then took place in Tokyo, London,
Brasília and Canberra. They took the form of satellite conferences of the World
Congress of the International Association of Bioethics and received organizational
support from the WHO in Tokyo and London. Like the Council of Europe, the Global
Summit decided to admit bodies which did not unequivocally possess the status of
a national committee or which belonged to states with more than one relevant body.
Like the second COMETH meeting in Stockholm, the San Francisco Conference
chose the work of ethics committees itself as its topic. Usually, however, the main focus
of the Summit’s exchanges is on specific current bioethical issues. In addition to
providing information about the debate in other countries, representation at international
meetings results in better visibility of national debates and positions abroad.
This means that smaller countries such as Portugal or Belgium can also play a part in
the international discussion. In some cases, the national debate and the institutional
framework adopted in individual countries constitute paradigms for newly participating
states. That is why the number of states represented has grown constantly.
Website
Global Summit: http://www.who.int/ethics/globalsummit
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