Biolaw : origins, doctrine and juridical applications on the biosciences

This book configures a consistent epistemology of biolaw that distinguishes itself from bioethics and from a mere set of international instruments on the regulation of biomedical practices. Such orthodox intellection has prevented biolaw from being understood as a new branch of law with legally binding force, which has certainly dwindled its epistemological density. Hence, this is a revolutionary book as it seeks to deconstruct the history of biolaw and its oblique epistemologies, which means not accepting perennial axioms, and not seeing paradigms where only anachronism and anomaly still exist. It is a book aimed at validity, but also at solidity because the truth of biolaw has never been told before. In that sense, it is also a revealing text. The book shapes biolaw as an independent and compelling branch of law, with a legally binding scope, which boosts the effectiveness of new deliberative models for legal sciences, as well as it utterly reinforces hermeneutical and epistemological approaches, in tune with the complexity of disturbing legal scenarios created by biomedical sciences' latest applications. This work adeptly addresses the origins of the European biolaw and its connections with American bioethics. It also analyses different biolaw's epistemologies historically developed both in Europe and in the United States, to finally offer a new conception of biolaw as a new branch of law, by exploring its theoretical and practical atmospheres to avoid muddle and uncertainty when applied in biomedical settings. This book is suitable for academics and students of biolaw, law, bioethics, and biomedical research, as well as for professionals in higher education institutions, courts, the biomedical industry, and pharmacological companies. -- back cover Introduction Contents About the Author 1 The Birth of Biolaw: From American Bioethics to European Biolaw 1.1 Inception 1.1.1 The Nuremberg Code 1.1.2 Tuskegee 1.1.3 Willowbrook 1.2 The Belmont Report 1.2.1 Boundaries Between Practice and Research 1.2.2 Basic Ethical Principles 1.2.3 Applications 1.3 The Relationship Between the Belmont Report and Biolaw 1.4 Principles of Biomedical Ethics and Principlism 1.4.1 Respect for Autonomy 1.4.2 Nonmaleficence 1.4.3 Beneficence 1.4.4 Justice 1.5 Critiques on Principlism 1.5.1 Jonsen and Toulmin’s Critique 1.5.2 Clouser and Gert’s Critique 1.5.3 Callahan’s Critique 1.6 The Relationship Between Principlism and Biolaw 1.7 The Birth of European Biolaw 1.7.1 Epistemological, Institutional and Jurisdictional Configuration of European Biolaw 1.7.2 Historical and Legal Evolution References 2 Traditional Conceptions of Biolaw 2.1 Introduction 2.2 The Wrong Understanding of Biolaw from Bioethics 2.2.1 European Conception: Juridification and Complementation 2.2.2 Critiques on European Conception 2.2.3 Mediterranean Conception: Subjection and Overlap 2.2.4 Critiques on Mediterranean Conception 2.2.5 American Conception: Substitution and Colonization 2.2.6 Critiques on American Conception 2.2.7 International Conception: Intersection 2.2.8 Critiques on International Conception 2.3 Conclusions References 3 Principles of European Biolaw 3.1 Principles 3.1.1 Autonomy 3.1.2 Dignity 3.1.3 Integrity 3.1.4 Vulnerability 3.1.5 Principles’ Framework 3.2 Strengths and Weaknesses of European Biolaw’s Principlism 3.2.1 Strengths 3.2.2 Weaknesses References 4 Reformulation and Juridification of Biolaw’s Principles: A Possible New Framework 4.1 Is It Possible to Juridify European Biolaw? 4.2 Juridification of European Biolaw’s Principles 4.3 Specifying (Juridifying) Bioethical Principles 4.3.1 Case: Everyone Met the Rules but Pop Black Died 4.3.2 Main Elements at Stake 4.3.3 Supporting Arguments 4.3.4 Applying the Four Principles Approach 4.3.5 How a Principlist Should Reason and Solve the Case? 4.3.6 Case Decision 4.3.7 Conclusions 4.4 A Possible New Framework 4.4.1 Utilitarianism and Bioethics 4.4.2 Classical Utilitarianism 4.4.3 The Principle of Utility in Bioethics 4.4.4 Some Conclusions Before the Framework 4.5 New Framework References 5 A New Conception of Biolaw 5.1 Definition 5.1.1 Why Biolaw Is Not Bioethics 5.1.2 The Crisis of Biolaw’s Jurisdiction: Why Biolaw Is a New Branch of Law 5.1.3 Biolaw as an Epistemology, Model, Approach and Branch of Law 5.2 Why We Need Biolaw 5.3 Contributions of Biolaw to Juridical Science: Integrating New Biorights into Legal Systems 5.4 The Constitutionalization of Biolaw 5.5 Conclusions References 6 Biolaw and the Biosciences 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Genetic Manipulation 6.2.1 International Legal Frameworks for Genetic Manipulation 6.2.2 Imperfections of the Criminal Type in Genetic Manipulation 6.2.3 Proposal to Optimise Genetic Manipulation’s International Regulation 6.2.4 Conclusions 6.3 Dysgenic Practices and Disability 6.3.1 Introduction 6.3.2 The Court’s Ruling: Explanation, Criticism and Its Coincidence with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ Jurisprudence 6.3.3 Balancing the Constitutional Court’s Arguments 6.3.4 The Court’s Concept Fissures 6.3.5 Contributions of Biolaw to Colombian, Inter-American and International Legal Systems 6.3.6 Conclusions 6.4 Genome Editing (CRISPR/Cas9) 6.4.1 Explaining the Technique 6.4.2 Applications and Policy Issues 6.4.3 Controversial Point 6.4.4 Principles for Governance of Human Genome Editing 6.4.5 Specified Rules to Conduct CRISPR/Cas9 6.5 Enhancement 6.5.1 Definition 6.5.2 Why Enhancement Is Right 6.5.3 Why Enhancement Is Wrong 6.5.4 Some Guidelines for Regulation 6.6 Human Genome Issues 6.7 Genetically Modified Organisms 6.8 Biosecurity 6.9 Conclusions References 7 Technology, Nature, Animals and Biolaw 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Law and Technology: A Philosophical Reflection 7.3 Contemporary Technology and the Modified Scope of Human Action 7.4 The Reification of Nature 7.5 The Juridical Meaning of Contemporary Technology 7.6 From τέχνη (Téchne) to Contemporary Technology 7.7 The Dissolution of Φύσις (Physis) in the Technological Experience of the World 7.8 Technology as a Subjection Device: Biotechnology 7.9 Technology as Second Nature 7.10 Biolaw and Contemporary Technology 7.11 Animal Suffering and Biolaw References Conclusions Index