Public Debate

The Guide aims to assist member States in raising public awareness about biomedical developments by encouraging the circulation of information, views and opinions. The Guide also aims to help to develop, plan and promote exchanges between different people and actors with a view, where appropriate, to informing policy making based on shared values and respect for human rights. The Guide does this with reference to a selection of good practices and experiences in member states which illustrate aspects of public debate in action.

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Public debate enables fundamental questions about developments in biology and medicine to be the subject of open and collective discussion and dialogue. As a potential source of important benefit for human health, such developments can also have implications which raise concerns related to inter alia autonomy, privacy, integrity and non-discrimination, as well as equity of access to health care. Such implications are questions not only for experts or authorities but for individuals, groups and society as a whole.
The Guide was developed by the Committee on Bioethics (DH-BIO) on the basis of Article 28 of the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (ETS No 164), the only international legally binding instrument addressing the protection of human rights in biomedicine.
The Guide is primarily addressed to government officials, public authorities, national ethics committees and other relevant educational and academic institutions and organisations.
The Guide highlights the need for public debate, how to prepare for it, ways to make it effective and meaningful.

Speech by Tesi Aschan, DH-BIO chair,Global Summit of National Bioethics committees
9 september 2020

Public debate as a tool for the governance of new technologies
4 June 2019


A guide from the Council of Europe to open the debate on biomedicine (in french)
8 octobre 2020 | RCF radio

High-Level Seminar on Public Debate
The Committee on Bioethics organised, under the auspices of the French Presidency of the Committee of Ministers, a High-level seminar on public debate as a tool for the governance of new technologies. The high-level seminar took place on 4 June 2019 in Palais de l’Europe. The objective of the...

