Disseminating the principles of the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights

摘要

I was invited to be an observer at the UNESCO Meetings in Rabat, Morocco, of the 6th session of the International Bioethics Committee (7-9th October 1999), the 1st session of the Intergovernmental Bioethics Committee (11-12th October 1999) and the Joint Session of both Committees (13th October 1999). This provided an opportunity to view the work of the Committees at an important stage in the development of their work, that is the consideration of guidelines for the implementation and dissemination of the principles embodied in the Universal Declaration. The meetings happened to coincide with announcements of the imminent completion of the first draft of the sequenced human genome, and its commercialisation. Significantly they took place in a poor Third World nation. Morocco is, perhaps, untypical in its concern with the issues raised by the research on the human genome, however, it is representative of the South in so far as it will not be playing an important role in setting the research and commercial agendas for the post-Human Genome Project phase. The work of the Committees demands our attention since the Universal Declaration may open a potential route for the poor, and so far excluded, nations and peoples to have a determinate role in the development of future human genome research. The implementation and dissemination of the Universal Declaration, therefore, is becoming a matter of some urgency.