General provisions

• Article 1 – Scope
  
  1. This Declaration addresses ethical issues related to medicine, life sciences and associated technologies as applied to human beings, taking into account their social, legal and environmental dimensions.
  2. This Declaration is addressed to States. As appropriate and relevant, it also provides guidance to decisions or practices of individuals, groups, communities, institutions and corporations, public and private.
• Article 2 – Aims
  The aims of this Declaration are:
  1. to provide a universal framework of principles and procedures to guide States in the formulation of their legislation, policies or other instruments in the field of bioethics;
  2. to guide the actions of individuals, groups, communities, institutions and corporations, public and private;
  3. to promote respect for human dignity and protect human rights, by ensuring respect for the life of human beings, and fundamental freedoms, consistent with international human rights law;
  4. to recognize the importance of freedom of scientific research and the benefits derived from scientific and technological developments, while stressing the need for such research and developments to occur within the framework of ethical principles set out in this Declaration and to respect human dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms;
  5. to foster multidisciplinary and pluralistic dialogue about bioethical issues between all stakeholders and within society as a whole;
  6. to promote equitable access to medical, scientific and technological developments as well as the greatest possible flow and the rapid sharing of knowledge concerning those developments and the sharing of benefits, with particular attention to the needs of developing countries;
  7. to safeguard and promote the interests of the present and future generations;
  8. to underline the importance of biodiversity and its conservation as a common concern of humankind.