Volume 5, Number 2
All extension personnel and life science faculty from Iowa State University are invited to a unique, week-long conference on bioethics hosted by the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, June 14-19, 2003. The objective of the conference is to provide participants with the training and resources they need to incorporate ethics into their courses and extension outreach activities.
If you discuss issues concerning agriculture, food, human health,
families, the environment, animals, or biotechnology in your courses and workshops,
and you find yourself fielding ethical questions about these topics, the Bioethics
Institute is just the thing for you. The Institute provides a strong background
in ethical theory, which enables participants to lead discussions about ethics
with confidence. We'll also discuss environmental ethics, animal rights and
animal welfare, the ethics of biotechnology, research ethics, bioethics policy,
and more.
The Bioethics Institute provides a great opportunity to work closely with colleagues
from other institutions who share an interest in bioethics. In addition
to lectures and large-group discussions, you will have plenty of time to work
in small groups on case studies and other activities that you can take home
and use with your students and communities. You also will have the opportunity
to write a case study with a small group of colleagues. This provides
a chance to cover issues that are important to you and put them into a format
that you can use in your courses and workshops.
The Institute is open to all faculty members and extension personnel at Iowa State University; at the nine land-grant institutions funded by the USDA to address the social, economic and ethical aspects of biotechnology; and at National Agricultural Biotechnology Council member institutions. Successful applicants will receive a $425 stipend, and $450 to cover travel and other expenses.
For more information and to register online, visit http://www.bioethics.umn.edu/News/bi2003/index.html.
by Kristen Hessler, bioethics outreach coordinator
Human rights capture a basic ethical notion: that all human beings,
regardless of nationality, race, or gender, are equally deserving of security
and the necessities of a decent life.
Since the end of World War II, the international community has
overseen the proliferation of international agreements to protect human rights
and witnessed the emergence of new categories of human rights. One of
these new categories includes environmental human rights, which are particularly
relevant to issues currently of interest in life science ethics, such as energy
policy, food production for a growing world population, or the use of biotechnology
in agriculture.
The United Nations' Stockholm Declaration of 1972 contains the
first UN endorsement of environmental human rights. The Stockholm Declaration
asserts both a "fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions
of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being,"
and a "solemn responsibility to protect and improve the environment for
present and future generations."
Often, the ethical impacts of new technologies are discussed in terms of risk/cost/benefit
analysis. Understanding environmental issues in terms of human rights
reminds us to give special weight to fundamental values such as the quality
of human life and the health of ecosystems, and to take seriously the interdependence
between them. For example, the Stockholm Declaration's "responsibility
to protect and improve the environment for present and future generations"
requires us to pay attention not just to how much environmental harm we are
willing to risk today, but also how much environmental harm is consistent with
our obligation to bequeath a healthy environment to future generations.
Unlike a pure risk/cost/benefit analysis, an analysis based on human rights
will prohibit some tradeoffs of environmental quality even in exchange for greater
productivity, economic growth, or other anticipated benefits.
Not everyone sees the emergence of environmental human rights
as a clearly positive development. Traditionalists in the field of human
rights law are concerned that the proliferation of new human rights will weaken
the force of established human rights, such as rights against torture or political
imprisonment. Some environmentalists object to the anthropocentric nature
of environmental rights, which are concerned with environmental issues as instrumental
to human welfare, instead of assigning intrinsic ethical significance to the
environment itself.
While it is an important philosophical issue to determine the kind of value
attributable to healthy ecosystems, in practice environmental human rights could
become a legal instrument for recognizing and redressing serious environmentally
mediated harms to people and populations. Moreover, while it is possible
that a commitment to environmental human rights could weaken the international
community's efforts at protecting traditional civil and political human rights,
it is also possible that there are enough connections between civil or political
injustice and environmentally mediated harms that a commitment to environmental
human rights will actually make the international community more effective at
protecting human rights overall.
These concerns are currently being addressed both in theory and in the practice of human rights law. In time, talking in terms of environmental human rights may become second nature for those working in fields relevant to life science ethics. In the meantime, however, environmental human rights deserve attention in life science ethics, both because of how they can help define aspects of problems currently of interest in life science ethics, and because of the new areas of interest they identify.
Published four times per year
by the ISU Office of Biotechnology
and the Bioethics Program.
To subscribe, call 515-294-7356.
Editor: Dena Huisman
Iowa State University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age,
religion, national origin, sexual orientation, sex, marital status, disability,
or status as a U.S. Vietnam Era Veteran. Any persons having inquiries concerning
this may contact the Director of Affirmative Action, 318 Beardshear Hall, 515-294-7612.
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Last Update 05/23/03
