Forming International Guarantees of the Right to Personal Integrity in the Genetic Research and Genetic Technologies Application Field

Abstract

Introduction. The right to personal integrity as a fundamental somatic right has specific features in its legal entrenchment within the sphere of genomic research. These specificities are manifested in the diversity of its sources, as well as in the uneven reflection in the norm-setting activities of the two main actors in this field: UNESCO and the Council of Europe.
Materials and methods. A whole range of scientific methods were used in the course of the study. Among them are comparative legal methods, logical analysis, and others.
Research results. This article focuses special attention, in the first place, on the norm-setting activities of UNESCO in ensuring the right to genetic integrity at the universal international level and on the legal instruments it adopts in this area. In the second place, the article analyzes the provisions of the law of the Council of Europe, under whose auspices the Oviedo Convention and a number of additional protocols to it were adopted, which together form a unique regulatory framework for guaranteeing the right to bodily integrity at the international regional level in Europe.
Discussion and conclusion. The article substantiates the fundamental nature of the right to genetic integrity as a basis for formulating human genetic rights.