The growing globalization of medical research and the application of new biotechnologies in morally contested areas has forced a revision of international ethical guidelines.

This book examines the controversies surrounding biomedical research in the twenty-first century from a human rights perspective, analyzing the evolution and changes in form and content of international instruments regulating the conduct of biomedical research.

The approach adopted is comparative and includes an evaluation of human rights and UK and US law on embryonic stem cell research, the HIV/AIDS...

Stem cell research, and particularly embryonic stem cell research, while offering the prospect of developing theories for serious life-threatening diseases, also raises a number of difficult and controversial moral questions. This is reflected in a variety of moral perspectives and regulatory regimes, already adopted or in the process of being developed, in EU Member States. In particular the "moral exclusion" clause in Article 6 of the EC Directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions has created much uncertainty in this field.

This collection of original essays...