BIOETHICAL AND MEDICAL ISSUES IN THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS CASE – LAW

Abstract

The European Court of Human Rights has proved to have an enormous influence in the
protection of important rights and freedoms at all levels often setting valuable standards
relevant for the national legislations. Its role, therefore, is not just protective but also indirectly
legislative policy directed. This especially applies to issues that haven't been globally legally
and ethically established, especially the bioethics and medicine related ones. The surrogacy
issues, for example, are very differently assessed in different states, varying from
comprehensive and detailed regulation to total prohibition. However, from the perspective of
the protection of the rights of the children born via surrogacy arrangements, the ECrHR has
reached important decisions that will most probably lead to acceptance of surrogacy in the
European countries. That Judgements of Mennesson v. France (2014) and Labasse v. France
(2014) but also Foulon and Bouvet v. France (2016), Paradiso and Campanelli v. Italy (2017)
etc. will inevitably shape the future surrogacy legislations. Other important bioethical issue that
the ECrHR dealt with is the dignified end of life/assisted suicide. Petty v. The United Kingdom
(2002), Haas v. Switzerland (2011) and Koch v. Germany (2012) will be elaborated in other to
determine the standpoints of the Court on the respective issues. Taking into consideration that
consent has been labelled as a core principle and requirement of the biomedical procedures, the
Court addressed it in many cases from several specific aspects. Therefore, several issues will
be evaluated regarding their relevance vis-a-vis the informed consent and articles 2, 3, 8 and
other provisions of the Convention in several cases. At the end, conclusions will be presented
about which issues have the potential to be resolved and which remain open due to the ECrHR
case law.