Law and Policy on Bioethics and Biotechnology

我们的项目组旨在研究专业知识在生物伦理学、生物技术和法律领域的意义。通过这样做，我们希望将来在这些领域产生新的专家。我们在国内外的律师、医生、心理学家、伦理学家、官员和其他人士中举办了许多专题讨论会和讲习班。我们的重点是目前医疗问题和生物伦理问题合法化的趋势。我们挑选了各种各样的问题，如临终关怀、辅助生殖、患者自主、健康信息隐私和患者安全，在律师和其他非法律领域的专家之间进行讨论。有一次，我们在墨尔本大学法学院举办了一个研讨会，澳大利亚、美国和日本的专家聚在一起讨论人体医学研究。这一系列跨学科的讨论清楚地表明，其他非法律专家对法律方法和对医学伦理问题的思考感到不满。另一方面，他们中的许多人对法律和律师抱有过高的期望，希望他们能给他们一个明确的规则，以便于适用。总之，从他们的角度来看，律师在一种方式上做得太多，在另一种方式上做得太少。法律能做什么和法律实际做什么之间有明显的差距。这意味着我们需要一个新的学术领域来填补这一空白。为了建立一门新的学科，我们的努力表明，我们应该考虑以下三个方面。首先，非律师错误地认为法律的核心是刑法。第二，对他们来说，法律永远是制裁的工具。如果可能的话，要避免触犯法律。的确，法律的主要功能之一是给予制裁和惩罚，但律师可以从更广泛的角度考虑法律。法律可以成为在日常实践中支持医疗道德和尊重医疗专业的工具。第三，虽然律师和非律师之间的沟通一直很困难，但仍然是可行的。很大一部分的沟通差距是由于缺乏沟通，而不是因为不可能沟通。要建立一门新的医学法律学科，建立一个像我们这样的网络的努力将是有用的和不可或缺的。在生物技术领域，一系列的讨论同样揭示了法律和法律途径的不足，以及学术伦理在专利申请领域的重要性。少

Our project group aimed at researching on the meaning of expertise in the fields of bioethics, biotechnology and law. By so doing, we hope to produce new experts in these fields in the future.We have done a number of symposiums and workshops among lawyers, physicians, psychologists, ethicists, bureaucrats, and others both internationally and domestically. Our focus has been upon the current trend toward legalization of medical issues and bioethical issues. We have picked up a variety of issues such as terminal care, assisted reproduction, patients' autonomy, health information privacy, and patient safety to discuss between lawyers and other experts in non-law fields. At one time we set up a workshop at Melbourne University Law School, where Australian, American and Japanese experts got together to discuss medical research on human subjects. This series of interdisciplinary discussion made it clear that other non-law experts are dissatisfied with legal approach and thinking about the me … More dical ethics issues. On the other hand, many of them make excessive expectations from law and lawyers who could hopefully give them a clear rule to easily apply. In sum, lawyers are doing too much in one way and too little in the other from their point of view. There is a clear gap between what the law could do and what the law actually does.It means that we need a new academic field to fill the gap. To establish a new discipline, our efforts revealed, we should take into consideration the following three. First, non-lawyers mistakenly think that the core of law is criminal law. Second, for them, law is always a tool for sanctions. The law is to be avoided if possible. It is true that one of the major functions of law is to give sanctions and penalties, but lawyers could think more broadly of law. Law could be a tool for supporting medical ethics and respecting the medical profession in their daily practices. Third, although communication between lawyers and non-lawyers has been difficult, still it is found out to be feasible. The large part of communication gap was due to the lack of it, not to its impossibility. To establish a new medico-legal discipline, the efforts to make a network like ours will be useful and indispensable.In the biotechnology area, the series of discussion revealed likewise the insufficiency of law and legal approach, and also the importance of academic ethics in patent application field. Less