The environmental protection set on the Universal Declaration about Bioethics and Human Rights

Abstract

The text brings comments on the 17th article discoursing about the environmental protection brought by the Universal Declaration about Bioethics and Human Rights. The analysis evaluates the environmental crisis under the fragmentary tendency point of view set by the Modernity Paradigm and shows the need to the ecology to get assumed as a cultural paradigm. The ecological perspective of reality opens the door to connect health with environment, allowing a human health eco-systemic vision. To understand the 17th article is necessary to take into account the declarations emerged from the United Nations Conferences about Environmental and Development, especially that one occurred in 1992, in Rio de Janeiro. These documents have origin in the environmental challenges brought by the economic growth and have its perspective on the sustainable development. The Declaration about Bioethics takes, as a reference, the ethical issues by the biotechnologies advances and its perspective is the human rights. The document emphasizes the inter-relation between human beings and other forms of life, the appropriate use of the natural resources and the human role in the protection of the environment, biosphere and biodiversity.