Journal international de bioethique et d'ethique des sciences最新文献

The idea of collaborative governance is gaining popularity. However, how can it be truly collaborative? Decision-making systems with diverse stakeholders must deal with different positions, roles, interests, missions, observations, and values. The co P·R·I·M·O·V (Position, Role, Interest, Mission, Observation, Values) bioethics tool aims to improve the practice of sustainable, collaborative, and democratic development of technosocial initiatives through its user-friendly format for professional ethicists. The tool follows the logic of Conflict of Interest (CoI) analysis used in organizational ethics frameworks. CoI, as an analytical unit in ethics, allows the anticipation and management of problems that may compromise the short- and long-term activities of a program and its governance. This tool was built on a case study for the implementation of monitoring of antibiotic use in animal health in Quebec, Canada. The use of this bioethics tool is strategic and can help negotiate positions and thus co-construct a common frame of reference between the stakeholders in view of a collaborative governance favoring cooperation.

The Supreme Court of Canada having declared unconstitutional the legislative provisions prohibiting assisted dying because they were too broad in scope, the law of March 17, 2021 broadened these conditions, however postponing the date of application to March 17,2023 for the mentally ill only. Faced with the difficulties raised to avoid a broad interpretation of the criteria, which could open the way to requests based on weariness in combating difficult socio-economic situations, the law of March 9, 2023 extended this deadline until March 17, 2024.

This article discusses the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment (hereinafter “right to a healthy environment”) within the framework of a “food systems approach” and from the perspective of the three main functions of law in the transition to sustainable and equitable food systems (hereinafter “SAD”). The article aims to demonstrate that the right to a healthy environment is an indispensable right for achieving the transition to SADs through the building blocks of food systems, namely food supply chains, food environments and consumer behavior. First of all, the article notes that the right to a healthy environment has been at the heart of SAD since it was recognized as a human right by Resolution 48/13 of the Human Rights Council and Resolution 76/300 of the United Nations General Assembly. As well as underpinning the sustainability and equity of food systems, the right to a healthy environment is inseparable from the realization of other human rights, most notably the right to adequate food, itself at the heart of food systems. Secondly, the article argues that the operationalization of the right to a healthy environment by States would benefit from a “food systems approach” to ensure the transition to SADs. In this perspective, the right to a healthy environment constitutes a genuine vector for the development and adoption of legal and policy measures that improve the sustainability and equity of food systems, and the implementation of the CFS Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition adopted in 2021.

The development of Territorial Food Strategies, like the French “Projets Alimentaires Territoriaux”, implies proposing new tools to support local decision-making. The FRUGAL set of indicators has been specifically developed for this purpose: to provide an expertise capacity to local actors and a knowledge base to understand their local food system and to develop and revise their food strategy. In this paper, we present the theoretical elements that made it possible to design and structure this set of indicators; the method for developing these indicators; and how this tool can be used by urban participants wishing to use it for a local diagnosis.

In light of the increasing number and complexity of food products on offer to meet the challenges of the food transition, this article looks at the consequences for consumers’ freedom of choice. This freedom of choice cannot be based on total autonomy, which generally leads to a loss of dietary reference points and guilt, or on radical heteronomy dictated by science or hygienic-ecological rationalities, which create tensions and divisions in society. Rather, dietary freedom is an effort to free oneself from the burden of a criterion-based vision of food. It calls for the restoration of an ethic of eating together, based on values and rules capable of preserving common goods and the well-being and survival of our fellow human beings.

Agroecology has become a trendy word in political and media discourse and the subject of international debates, but its meaning remains unclear. This article defines this experimental science and explains its substance, and then goes on to examine how and to what extent agricultural law has allowed it to enter the political arena. It explains why agricultural Frenc Law and UE agricuktural Policy struggles to offer a secure and comprehensive framework for agroecology whereas this multi-disciplinary, complex and systematic science is looking to the future and aims to protect future generations.

Since the 1990s, the pharmaceutical industry has been a major contributor to the economic growth of India. India is the world’s largest vaccines producer, and it attracts foreign direct investors who are relocating production capacities and research activities to develop new drugs in India. India, however, suffers from a lack of trust due to repeated scandals over clinical trials. Some of these scandals have led to economic sanctions, such as the withdrawal of hundreds of generic drugs from consumption in Europe in 2015. These measures followed irregularities detected in clinical trials carried out on volunteers. While India has taken steps to reform the bioethical institutions responsible for the control of clinical trials, we show in this contribution that loopholes persist. Two periods can be distinguished. The first period, between the early 2000s and 2013, gathers a significant growth in the number of clinical trials with a growth in bioethical scandals. It led the Indian government, under pressure from the civil society and the Supreme Court, to take action to curb clinical trials and to reform bioethical institutions. The second period, from 2013 to 2021, is characterised by an increase in the number of clinical trials in a context of strengthening the efficiency of bioethical institutions. We show that the increase in clinical trials is mainly due to the implementation of the TRIPs agreements on generic drugs. This development put another pressure on national vigilance authorities which remain undersized with respect to the magnitude of the Indian clinical trials market. It also highlights again the structural frailties of the Indian Federal System.