Second International Conference of the UNESCO Bioethics Chair at the UB

Bioethics and Law Observatory - 12/11/2008

The UNESCO Bioethics Chair at the University of Barcelona is set to host its second international conference on 26 and 27 January 2009 in the great hall of the UB’s Law School. The conference will address “Human Dignity as a Foundation of UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights”.

The main objective of the conference, which is hosted annually by the UNESCO Bioethics Chair at the UB, is to promote the “Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights”, jointly with the UB’s Observatory on Bioethics and Law (OBD), which is located at the Barcelona Science Park.

Participating in the conference will be individuals with international prestige in the field of bioethics, including former UNESCO Director-General Federico Mayor Zaragoza and Florencia Luna, director of Argentina’s Observatory on Bioethics at the Latin-American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) and former president of the International Bioethics Association. OBD members taking part will include María Casado, OBD director and holder of the UNESCO Bioethics Chair at the UB, and Lluís Cabré, president of the Bioethics and Law Association (ABD).

The opening and introduction to the conference will be handled by Enoch Albertí, dean of the UB’s Law School, and María Casado, UNESCO Bioethics Chair at the UB. Speakers will include prestigious members of the Observatory on Bioethics and Law, the Bioethics Committee of Spain, and the Network in Bioethics Teaching (AECI). 

The mission of the UNESCO Bioethics Chair at the UB is to foster an integrated system of research, training and dissemination activities in the field of Bioethics, with the aim of facilitating collaboration among renowned specialists, universities and institutions of higher learning in Europe, the Americas and other regions of the world. Another of its objectives is to promote the transfer of the experience gained by the Observatory on Bioethics and Law to developing countries.

The UB’s UNESCO Bioethics Chair is the sixth chair of its kind in the world, and it is the first conferred upon a Spanish institution. Its creation reflects international recognition of the work done by the Observatory on Bioethics and Law, which pursues a line of multidisciplinary research and knowledge transfer concerning the ethical, social and legal implications of biotechnology and biomedicine. As a product of the analyses and debates undertaken at the international conference in January, a collective work will be published on the UNESCO Declaration as part of the new series “Bioethics Issues”, edited by the OBD and the Bioethics and Law Association.