Issue No. 2, November 2016 - Democracy and human rights under Public Health Emergency (PHE) threat

Examples include the 1946 maintenance of order public, for the prevention of World Health Organisation Constitution, the crime, for the protection of health or morals, or 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for the protection of the rights and freedoms of and the 1966 International Covenant on others.”. [...] play for events which may constitute public health emergencies of international concern Since years and certainly in the aftermath of under the International Health Regulations, the terrorist attack of 9/11 in the US, the provided that they fall under one of the anthrax threat, the EU has organised itself to defined categories of threats in this decision. [...] The semantic analysis of a number of national influenza pandemic management plans in Europe showed little concern for ethical 7 aspects and a lack of true discussion of ethical On April 2015 in the framework of the EU co- issues in most with the exception of the UK, funded project ASSET, experts published an French, Swiss and Czech plans [6]. [...] This report identified and drew of ethical considerations in pandemic attention to the various ethical, legal and preparedness and response reveals the fundamental rights implications in situations of importance and the need to place those issues public health emergencies, such as epidemics in the right context and the right proportions. [...] Participation of patients should be concerned, public and patients have the considered in the overall process of research potentiality to add a new and extremely to provide experiential knowledge that can important dimension to scientific improve the quality, relevance and validity of communication: the ability to speak to (and to the research process.