CYIL vol. 11 (2020)

CYIL 11 (2020)

THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD IN MEDICAL RESEARCH

Conclusion The Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine’s conditions for research on minors can be summarised as three principles: the principle of direct benefit, the principle of subsidiarity, and the principle of autonomy. All of these principles in their uniqueness as well as in their combination can be understood as an expression of protection of the best interests of the child required by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Czech national law, as well as European law, sufficiently corresponds to the three principles. From the perspective of applied ethics, Kantianism arguably represents the strictest normative theory the moral permissibility of research on children can be tested against. It requires that maxim which can be derived from particular rules would be suitable as a universal law and, at the same time, that the children participating in research are treated as ends in themselves and not merely as a means to expanding scientific knowledge. From this perspective, the principle of direct benefit is crucial. We argue that Kantianism can justify all types of medical research on children, possibly with the exception of non-beneficial research on children who will never be able to benefit from appreciating their contribution to others’ well-being.

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