ABSTRACT
This chapter will examine trade in human body parts. By this we refer to the issue of whether and the extent to which people should be free to exchange their body parts (such as organs, tissues and cells) as materials for transplant treatments or biomedical research for monetary or material benefits, directly or indirectly. In the first section we begin by outlining current laws and international material regulating trade in human body parts. We then turn to issues that give reasons to advocate trade in the second section. In the third section we examine in some detail the moral opposition against trade in body parts and some proposed trading systems, before discussing the principle of self-sufficiency for regulating organ donation globally. In the fourth section we consider the legal rule of property, and alternative arrangements to address the issues raised in the second section. Finally, we raise some possibilities for how the debate on trade in human body parts might develop.
