International conference
“From informed consent to no consent?
The challenges of new ethical frameworks”
Tartu, Estonia
November 4 - 6, 2010
The conference is organised by the Centre for Ethics of the University of Tartu, Faculty of Philosophy, the Estonian Genome Center, Graduate School of Biomedicine and Biotechnology and the Doctoral School of Behavioural, Social and Health Sciences.
A decade has passed since the mapping of the human genome - an event that paved way for many new developments in biomedicine and related fields. In ethics, this milestone was accompanied by calls for changes in the governing ethical frameworks. It was envisioned that concepts of solidarity, community and public interest ought to play a more prominent role alongside the traditional concepts of medical ethics like autonomy, privacy and informed consent. The rationale has been that these new developments in biological sciences and information technologies have resulted in applications that seriously challenge the usefulness and even appropriateness of these basic traditional concepts. For example informed consent - many have argued that the concept should either be modified (to open consent, broad consent etc) or, in some areas of application, abandoned altogether. Traditional informed consent has been criticized as being too individual-centred (to the detriment of collective or community interests), too formal and unnecessarily cumbersome to obtain. It has been suggested that a communitarian turn in medical ethics would solve some of the dilemmas introduced by new technologies.
The conference aims to scrutinise the ethical debates of the past decade and offer an assessment of the so-called communitarian turn. How successful has it been, both in theoretical debates as well as in the more applied fields of regulation? Surely traditional concepts like autonomy, consent and privacy have not lost their relevance but can we really hope to accommodate both the values of liberal individualism and communitarianism? How should the complex notion of public interest be construed and protected and what are the conditions under which the public interest may override individual interests? How to assess the present developments in biometrics and other new technologies where security and solidarity seem to prevail over privacy and autonomy? What are the potential difficulties that accompany the employment of these new concepts for novel sociotechnical purposes like digitalized health records and biobanks?
The discussion will be broadly divided among the following foci:
- Changing ethical frameworks - historical and theoretical considerations. Changes in regulation.
- Spillover effect - moving the new ethical frameworks into adjacent fields of electronic health records and security technologies.
- Possible future developments - from liberalism to communitarianism and beyond. The fate of absolute values in a pluralist world.
See also Call for Posters
Conference schedule
Thursday, November 4
10.30 - 11.30 Visit to the Estonian Genome Foundation, University of Tartu, Tiigi 61b (optional)
Cancelled 12.00 - 14.00 Films about new technologies. Discussion about ethical issues. Will take place on Nov 5th, 16.30-17.30. 
[read more]
14.00 - 15.30 City Excursion (optional)
16.00 - 17.30 PhD Seminar: „First-hand experience from US government advisors: changing ethical policies in the US“. Discussion with prof Tom L. Beauchamp and prof Ruth R. Faden, Domus Dorpatensis, Ülikooli 7, 1st floor [read more]
White Hall of the History Museum of the University of Tartu (Lossi 25)
Special opening keynote talk
18.15 - 18.30 Opening Prof. Hele Everaus, Chair of Estonian Council on Bioethics; Prof. Margit Sutrop, Head of the Centre for Ethics
18.30 - 19.15 Tom L. Beauchamp (Georgetown University, USA) “The History and the Challenges of 'Informed Consent'”
19.15 Welcome reception
Friday, November 5
Dorpat Conference Centre (Turu 2)
8.00 - 9.00 Registration and welcome coffee
9.00 - 9.15 Introduction: Margit Sutrop
9.15 - 10.15 Ruth R. Faden (Johns Hopkins University, USA) “A Social Justice Framework for Health Policy“
10.15 - 11.15 Toivo Maimets (University of Tartu, Estonia) „International Governance of Human Cloning“
11.15 - 11.45 coffee break
11.45 - 12.45 Theda Rehbock (Dresden University of Technology & University of Marburg, Germany) „Limits of autonomy in biomedical ethics? Conceptual clarifications“
12.45 - 13.45 Kjetil Rommetveit (University of Bergen, Norway) „Tackling epistemological naivety - understanding values, choices and the complexities of the ’greater good’?
13.45 - 14.45 Lunch
14.45 - 15.30 Poster session
15.30 - 16.30 Kadri Simm (University of Tartu, Estonia) - “On the uses and usefulness of the concept of common good“
16.30 - 17.30 Films about new technologies. Discussion about ethical issues
Saturday, November 6
Dorpat Conference Centre (Turu 2)
9.00 - 10.00 Margit Sutrop (University of Tartu, Estonia) - “From informed consent to no consent: from individual rights to common good?“
10.00 - 11.00 Ruth Chadwick (Cardiff University, UK) “The communitarian turn: has it come full circle?”
11.00 - 11.30 Coffee break
11.30 - 12.30 Jan Helge Solbakk (University of Oslo, Norway) “Ethical endgames: Broad consent for narrow interests & open consent for closed minds “
12.30 - 13.30 Ants Nõmper (University of Tartu, Estonia), “Alternatives to informed consent - legal approach”
13.30 - 15.00 Lunch
15.00 - 16.00 Vilhjálmur Árnason (University of Iceland, Iceland) - “Public and private interests: A problematic distinction“
16.00 - 17.00 Emilio Mordini (Centre for Science, Society and Citizenship, Rome, Italy) “Security technology ethics: an oxymoron?”
17.00 Final remarks. Closing of the Conference
Venues:
White Hall of the History Museum of the University of Tartu (Lossi 25) (4th of Nov) and Dorpat Conference Centre (Turu 2) (5th & 6th of Nov). See also Practicalities
Funders:
1) European Economic Area (EEA) grant „New ethical frameworks for genome banks and e-health databases“ in cooperation with University of Iceland and University of Bergen (Norway), grant no 31
2) EU 7th Framework Programme Project „OpEnGenE - Opening Estonian Genome Project for European Research Area“, Estonian Genome Center, University of Tartu, Regpot 2009-1, grant no 245536
3) Graduate School of Biomedicine and Biotechnology (BMBT), University of Tartu, project no 1.2.0401.09-0073
4) Doctoral School of Behavioural, Social and Health Sciences, University of Tartu, project no 1.2.0401.09-0072
See also Organisers
Please contact for additional information about the conference: eetikakeskus [at] ut.ee, Tel: +372 7 375 327, Kristi Lõuk
