“HELP in the EU” cross border launch of the course Key Human Rights Principles in Biomedicine

Under the joint EU-Council of Europe project ‘European Programme for Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals in the European Union’ (HELP in the EU)  75 judges and prosecutors and lawyers from 12 EU member states met in Strasbourg on 7 and 8 March 2019 for a seminar on bioethics and the launch of the HELP course.

The programme supports legal professionals from EU Member States in acquiring the knowledge and skills on how to effectively and coherently apply European fundamental rights standards at the national level, mainly referring to the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights (the Charter), the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the (revised) European Social Charter (ESC) and relevant EU and Council of Europe Law.

The seminar was held at the premises of the Council of Europe and was dedicated to the ethical and legal issues determined by the evolution of biology and medicine, including new technologies, which affect the individual and the protection of the individual’s rights and dignity. These ethical and, in many cases, also legal issues arise in various areas, such as consent to medical intervention, the right to know one’s health data, matters related to medically assisted procreation, recourse to organ or tissue donation and transplantation, etc. All of them in certain aspects may fall into the scope of application of human rights law.

During the seminar the overview of free and informed consent was presented by Ronalds Rozkalns, attorney at law.

More detailed information about the seminar can be found on the web-page of the Counncil of Europe.