ABSTRACT
To help states and other stakeholders to promote and uphold these principles, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) International Bioethics Committee produces reports explaining them in depth and advising on their implementation. This chapter analyses the International Bioethics Committee's report on vulnerability in the light of the broader bioethics literature on this subject. It draws not only on the report itself, but the author's observations of the drafting process and subsequent discussions at meetings of UNESCO's International Bioethics Committee and Intergovernmental Bioethics Committee in 2010 and 2011. The report makes a significant contribution to bioethical reflections on the concept of vulnerability by broadening its application beyond the research context, to healthcare and biotechnology and considering societal as well as individual means of addressing vulnerability. The report was drafted by a Working Group, with input from the International Bioethics Committee (IBC) and the Intergovernmental Bioethics Committee (IGBC) at their various meetings from 2008 to 2011.
