Truth commissions and commissions of inquiry are not new for Indigenous Peoples. In Guatemala, Peru, Australia, Chile, and Canada, Indigenous Peoples have been consulted, given statements, read reports, and more. Yet the larger question for Indigenous Peoples must be: how can a truth commission advance their longer-term vision of self-determination and full exercise of their political rights? C...

We analyse the system of ethical review of human research in the Baltic States by introducing the principle of equivalent stringency of ethical review, that is, research projects imposing equal risks and inconveniences on research participants should be subjected to equally stringent review procedures. We examine several examples of non-equivalence or asymmetry in the system of ethical review o...

E. Nemitz, M. A. Sutton, G. P. Wyers, R. P. Otjes, M. G. Mennen, E. M. van Putten, and M. W. Gallagher Atmospheric Sciences, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), Edinburgh Research Station, Bush Estate, Penicuik, Midlothian, EH26 0QB, United Kingdom Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN), Postbus 1, 1755 Petten ZG, The Netherlands National Institute of Public Health and Environment ...

1 I have little to contribute directly to ethical reflection that specifically deals with risks that might be occasioned by innovations of nanotechnology (Schummer, 2007; Shelley, 2006), and with how to promote responsible conduct and public trust in the face of them (Weil, 2006). Instead, I will introduce a general ethical stance towards technoscientific research and innovations, one that I ha...

A central issue for the development of summary measures of population health (SMPH), as well as for their use in the prioritization of health care resources, is the source of the value and ethical assumptions employed. Some, not surprisingly they are often social scientists, hold that any ethical premises should be empirically grounded, derived through empirical research on the actual values an...

Public health interventions usually operate at the level of groups rather than individuals, and cluster randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are one means of evaluating their effectiveness. Using examples from six such trials in Bangladesh, India, Malawi and Nepal, we discuss our experience of the ethical issues that arise in their conduct. We set cluster RCTs in the broader context of public he...

Facebook’s experimental manipulation of newsfeed content and the subsequent PNAS publication of significant findings from it (1) have drawn attention to the regulation of human participation in academic research and to the differences between commercial and academic research. Those events were recognized in an Expression of Concern in PNAS (2). In commerce and on the Internet, experimentation i...