ABSTRACT
The majority of people on this planet live in countries defined as ‘‘devel-
oping.’’2 This chapter identifies common themes that concern bioethicists in the developing world. Bioethics as a professional discipline exists in many
developing countries. Bioethicists teach in many health sciences and huma-
nities faculties in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Countries such as
Mexico have government appointed bioethics commissions not dissimilar to
counterparts in North America or Western Europe. Indeed, professional
journals dedicated exclusively to developing world bioethics have come
into existence. Some of them, such as Developing World Bioethics,3 are
even supported by mainstream developed world publishers, while others, such as the Indian journal Issues in Medical Ethics continue to operate
quite successfully on shoestring budgets. At the same time, otherwise
excellent major textbooks on medicine and social justice ignore developing
world issues nearly completely or look at them only from a U.S. American
Who are the bioethicists working in the developing world, professionally
speaking? Not unlike their Western colleagues, many have ventured into
bioethics later in their careers. Initially, they started off in philosophy or politics/political science departments or on the medical faculties of tertiary
institutions in their respective countries. Leading bioethicists in the Phi-
lippines, for instance, can be found in the philosophy and political science
departments of Manila-based campuses of the University of the Philippines.
It is fair to say that at the time of writing there is no straightforward career
path available to budding bioethicists in developing countries, yet strides
have been made by way of the development of undergraduate and post-
graduate curricula. International funding agencies such as the United States National Insti-
tutes of Health, the Wellcome Trust in the United Kingdom, and also the
World Health Organization, to name a few, have made unilateral decisions
to sponsor research ethics training programs. As a desirable consequence
of this, research ethics competencies have dramatically improved in many
parts of the developing world. This has come at a price, however. Budding
bioethicists were (and are) invariably drawn to international funding avail-
able for this sort of activity. This has skewed the appearance of developing
world bioethics in the international arena, and it has skewed the priorities bioethicists give in the work they undertake in their respective countries of
origin. (For example, Argentinian bioethicists’ contributions to congresses
held by the International Association of Bioethics frequently have been
related to research ethics.) I will return to this ongoing concern in the
fourth part of this chapter.
