Reassess the Law and Ethics of Heritable Genome Editing Interventions: Lessons for China and the World.

The current ethical and legal standards for human subjects research do not adequately address human gene editing technologies, because scientific advancements in this field have outpaced regulatory policy. The Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) technique allows the rewriting of life's code, but is fraught with scientific and ethical quandaries. In particular, the genetic alteration of human embryos in vitro in China has caused worldwide repercussions.

Rethinking Moral Expertise.

We argue that the way in which the concept of expertise is understood and invoked has prevented progress in the debate as to whether moral philosophers can be said to be 'moral experts'. We offer an account of expertise that draws on the role of tacit knowledge in order to provide a basis upon which the debate can progress. Our analysis consists of three parts.

TRUST A v X AND OTHERS: THE GHOST OF NIELSEN RETURNS?

The case of Trust A v X and Others suggests that parents can authorise significant restrictions to be imposed on their disabled children. The court held that the parents of a D, a 15-year-old boy with autism and challenging behaviour, could consent to their son's placement in a locked psychiatric ward for over 15 months, whereas if such restrictions were placed on a child of that age without such disabilities, they would 'probably amount to ill treatment'. Focussing on two main areas of concern, it is argued that this decision is questionable and provides little assistance in determining whether parents can consent to their child's admission to hospital.

Envisioning the Third Sector's Welfare Role: Critical Discourse Analysis of 'Post-Devolution' Public Policy in the UK 1998-2012.

Welfare state theory has struggled to come to terms with the role of the third sector. It has often categorized welfare states in terms of the pattern of interplay between state social policies and the structure of the labour market. Moreover, it has frequently offered an exclusive focus on state policy - thereby failing to substantially recognize the role of the formally organized third sector.

Pre(natal) crime: pregnant women, substance abuse and the law.

Should women who consume alcohol during pregnancy be seen as committing an offence against their foetuses? If we care about our future children, this is not the place to extend the criminal law.

The troubled identity of the bioethicist.

This paper raises questions about bioethical knowledge and the bioethical 'expert' in the context of contestation over methods. Illustrating that from the perspective of the development of bioethics, the lack of unity over methods is highly desirable for the field in bringing together a wealth of perspectives to bear on bioethical problems, that same lack of unity also raises questions as to the expert capacity of the 'bioethicist' to speak to contemporary bioethics and represent the field. Focusing in particular on public bioethics, the author argues that we need to rethink the concept of bioethicist, if not reject it.

Managing novel reproductive injuries in the law of tort: the curious case of destroyed sperm.

In view of developments in reproductive medicine, clinical mishaps in this domain are beginning to give rise to 'injuries' not easily accommodated within the English law of negligence. While 'personal injury' is typically understood as manifesting a deleterious 'physical' dimension, cases involving the negligent destruction of cryopreserved sperm, as recently litigated in Yearworth & Ors v Bristol NNN Trust (2009), and other media reported mishaps in fertility treatment do not straightforwardly possess this quality. Without modification, the traditional tortious conception of 'personal injury' in English law will not be able to address novel claims.

Testing the margin of appreciation: therapeutic abortion, reproductive 'rights' and the intriguing case of Tysiqc v. Poland.

In Tysiac v. Poland (2007) the Strasbourg Court ruled in favour of the applicant (who had been denied access to a lawful therapeutic abortion), finding that Poland had failed to comply with its positive obligations to safeguard the applicant's right to effective respect for her private life under Article 8. Exploring this controversial judgment, the author assesses the claim that Tysiac marks a 'radical shift' on the part of the Court in creating a 'right to abortion'.

Pharmacogenetics, race and global injustice.

This paper discusses the link between pharmacogenetics and race, and the global justice issues that the introduction of pharmacogenetics in pharmaceutical research and clinical practice will raise. First, it briefly outlines the likely impact of pharmacogenetics on pharmaceutical research and clinical practice within the next five to ten years and then explores the link between pharmacogenetic traits and 'race'. It is shown that any link between apparent race and pharmacogenetics is problematic and that race cannot be used as a proxy for pharmacogenetic knowledge.

Best interests and treatment for mental disorder.

This paper considers the role of the concept of best interests in the treatment of mental disorder. It considers the Mental Capacity Act 2005 where treatment of an incapacitated person's mental disorder is authorized if treatment is in the patient's own best interests. It also examines the Mental Health Act 1983 as amended by the Mental Health Act 2007 where treatment without consent of a detained patient is allowed where necessary for the patient's health or safety or for the protection of others.

Best interests: what problems in family law should health care law avoid?

This article comments briefly on three specific issues in Shazia Choudhry's paper "'Best Interests' What can healthcare law learn from family law?" The three issues are: (1) the implications of 'best interests' and 'welfare science' for women within the family law and the health care law context, (2) the risk of capture by the 'welfare science' industry, and (3) the proposal that a committee of medical experts and medical ethicists should be set up to provide reports to the Court of Protection on cases brought under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA). I argue that the risk of capture by 'welfare science' is equally large in health care law and that a committee of the kind envisaged by Choudhry is unlikely to contribute significantly to conflict resolution under the MCA.

Best interest: a philosophical critique.

On one conception of "best interest" there can only be one course of action in a given situation that is in a person's best interest. In this paper we will first consider what theories of "best interest" and rational decision-making that can lead to this conclusion and explore some of the less commonly appreciated implications of these theories. We will then move on to consider what ethical theories that are compatible with such a view and explore their implications.

Resolving the "egg supply problem" in human embryonic stem cell derivation through technical means--a legal and ethical analysis.

This paper seeks to briefly discuss the legal and ethical problems connected to scientific developments in the field of human embryonic stem cell derivation aimed at solving the "egg supply problem" in stem cell research. The legal situation is discussed in respect of the UK's current regulatory regime, proposed reform and the Oviedo Convention. The scientific developments which are examined are chimeric embryos, in vitro maturation of oocytes, derivation of stem cell lines in connection with pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and the derivation of oocytes from existing stem cell lines.

Human rights, bioethics, and mental disorder.

This article considers the international human rights instruments which set minimum standards for the content and use of mental health legislation, and the extent to which they represent 'hard law' (binding and enforceable in domestic or international courts) or 'soft law' which is not strictly binding in the same sense but which may provide persuasive authority or may be used in debate to embarrass a Government into compliance. The article considers the extent to which these various instruments impose both 'negative obligations' on states not to interfere with rights such as physical integrity or protection against arbitrary detention and 'positive' obligations on states to take positive steps to uphold the rights of individuals. The article on the case law under the European Convention on Human Rights showing how 'soft law' sources are increasingly used by the Strasbourg Court as aids to construing the scope of Convention rights.

Umbilical cord cell banking: an issue of self-interest versus altruism.

Stem cells from umbilical cord blood probably now form one of the most commonly banked types of human tissue. Originally stored for the treatment of haematological disorders these stem cells have now been found to be more versatile, even pluripotent, with potential for use in the treatment of a broader range of disorders and diseases and may be particularly valuable in cell therapy and regenerative medicine. This has led to the promotion of private storage of cord blood cells for autologous or family use and a rapidly growing private sector involvement.

'New embryos' - new challenges for the ethics of stem cell research.

Among the many ethical issues raised by human embryonic stem cell research (in the following all references to 'stem cells' should be read as references to human embryonic stem cells), two have gained specific prominence: (1) whether stem cell research is ethically problematic because it entails the destruction of human embryos and (2) what kind of control embryo donors should have over the stem cell lines derived from their embryos. In the present paper, I will analyse how these two issues are engaged by various attempts to derive stem cells from anomalous embryos (e.g.

Large scale surveys for policy formation and research: a study in inconsistency.

In this paper we analyse the degree to which a distinction between social science and public health research and other non-research activities can account for differences between a number of large scale social surveys performed at the national and European level. The differences we will focus on are differences in how participation is elicited and how data are used for government, research and other purposes. We will argue that the research / non-research distinction does not account for the identified differences in recruitment or use and that there are no other convincing justifications.