The growing globalization of medical research and the application of new biotechnologies in morally contested areas has forced a revision of international ethical guidelines.

This book examines the controversies surrounding biomedical research in the twenty-first century from a human rights perspective, analyzing the evolution and changes in form and content of international instruments regulating the conduct of biomedical research.

The approach adopted is comparative and includes an evaluation of human rights and UK and US law on embryonic stem cell research, the HIV/AIDS trials in the developing world, the Alder Hey Inquiry and the human radiation and nerve gas experiments on human subjects in the US and the UK. This is the first book to analyze some of the major issues in biomedical research today from an international, comparative human rights perspective.