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| SHSviews 24 |
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| UNESCO Social and Human Sciences Sector Magazine |
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| An Interview with a High-ranking Official from ECOWAS / Special Section: First World Social Sciences Forum / Dossier - Focus on the Netherlands – April-June 2009 (English | Français | Русский) |
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 Pandemics and Bioethics
The outbreak of a new virus has led the World Health Organization (WHO) to raise its pandemic alert to phase 5 on the scale of 6. Since the Mexican Ministry of Health began to notice in late March the symptoms of this entirely new hybrid strain of influenza virus, the international community has demonstrated its amazing resolve to cooperate in order to prevent the spread of the virus and mitigate its impact on people. As a matter of precaution, Mexican authorities have called off public events, and closed all non-essential services including schools and universities.
Due to these developments and in close consultation with the Mexican authorities, we have postponed to a later date two major international events which were to be held in Mexico City in May – the 16th Ordinary Session of International Bioethics Committee (IBC) and the joint European Commission-UNESCO Conference “Joint action for capacity building in bioethics”.
The World Health Organization has been working for a number of years on the range of challenging ethical issues raised by a potential influenza pandemic, to provide Member States with practical guidance on how to incorporate ethical and related human rights and legal considerations into their plans and preparation for, and response to, pandemic influenza. For instance, the WHO Guidelines for investigation of human cases of avian influenza A (H5N1) were published in January 2007.
This current health situation clearly shows that no nation is immune to the growing global threat posed by an isolated outbreak of infectious disease in a single part of the world. As people, goods and food travel the world in unprecedented numbers and at historic speeds, so too do the myriad of disease-causing microorganisms. Because national borders offer trivial impediment to such threats, one nation’s problem soon becomes a problem shared by all nations. The emergence of epidemics/pandemics therefore emphasizes the importance of thinking globally about health, particularly from an ethical point of view.
The Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, adopted by the UNESCO’s General Conference in 2005, whilst affirming widely accepted bioethical principles such as respect for individual autonomy and consent, also broadens the bioethics perspective emphasizing the need of a communitarian and global approach to urgent issues for many countries.
Pierre Sané
Assistant Director-General of UNESCO
for Social and Human Sciences
This issue of SHSviews covers topical issues from April to June 2009:
An Interview with a High-ranking Official from ECOWAS
In the hope of being able to follow the paths of development, Africa must develop a strategy for the creation and retention of wealth and use the global financial crisis to formulate and initiative its own model of development: these are the beliefs of Professor Lambert N'galadjo Bamba, Commissioner for Macroeconomic Policy Department of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), interviewed at the meeting of the Steering Committee of the future West Africa Institute, held in March 2009 in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire).Special Section: First World Social Sciences Forum
The first World Social Sciences Forum will bring together more that 800 participants in Bergen (Norway) from 10 to 12 May 1009 on the theme: “One Planet – Worlds Apart?” and will provide a unique opportunity to assess the relevance of social sciences in the context of the global financial crisis.Social and Human Sciences within National Commissions for UNESCO: Focus on the Netherlands
After the Philippines, Canada, Malawi, Cuba and Lebanon, SHSviews continues its international tour of National Commissions for UNESCO by visiting the Netherlands, where natural sciences and social and human sciences are treated equally by a Committee whose aim is to contribute to sustainable human development.Also in SHSviews n°24:
Editorial
- Pandemics and Bioethics, by Pierre Sané, Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences
Promoting Principles, Practices and Ethical Norms
- Cooperation: Towards an international network of National Bioethics Committee
- Mexico: Report of the 16th session of the International Bioethics Committee
- “NanoCap” comes to Brussels
- Workshop on environmental ethics in Lomé
- Call for entries: Avicenna Prize 2009
- COMEST: Development of nanotechnologies : A key debate in the Arab States
- Climate change: In Monaco, experts at the Arctic’s bedside
Directing Research for Action in the Service of Populations
- Regional integration: a future research institute in Cape Verde
- Greater Horn of Africa : a question of identity
- Latin America and the Caribbean: UNESCO manages a project for youth with 21 organizations
- UNESCO at the Vanguardia Latina Forum
- Ireland: a UNESCO Chair on Youth and Civic Engagement
Contributing to the Dialogue of Civilizations and Cultures
- Global governance : Advocating for social justice and human rights in London
- The financial crisis and gender issues: a study carried out on five continents
- Poverty and human rights: creation of a UNESCO Chair at the University of Bologna
- Small grants for research in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Argentina to host an International Centre for the Promotion of Human Rights
- Racism: what challenges for UNESCO?
Opinions on racism…:
- Doudou Diène, former Special Rapporteur of the United Nations on Contemporary Forms of Racism and Racial Discrimination
- Karel Vasak, former Director of UNESCO’s Division of Human Rights
- Ricardo Ehrlich, Mayor of Montevideo (Uruguay), Coalition of Latin American Cities against Racism
- Cities against racism: extending ECCAR to Eastern Europe
Readers’ Forum
- “Immigration policies or migration policies” by Marcello Balbo, President of the UNESCO Chair in Social and Spatial Inclusion of International Migrations : Urban Policies and Practice at the IUAV University in Venice (Italy)
Publications
- Is the right to free movement a human right?
- The IJMS is interested the return of migrants to their countries of origin
- The ISSJ revisits the concept of the Nation-State
- Opening schools to prevent violence
- Human Rights in Brazil
- An introduction to environmental ethics
- Learning about bioethics while having fun!
- More ethics = more development
- Should nanotechnologies be a cause of apprehension?
- Background, principles and application of the Declaration
Back Cover
- Publication: A handbook for city professionals in India
- Calendar from May to July 2009
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