The importance of UNESCO’s Universal Ethical Principles during the COVID-19 Pandemic
All the history of mankind has been always linked with epidemics, ranging from leprosy, bubonic plague to the AIDS.
It is obvious today that COVID-19 will continue this symbolic series of general humanitarian challenges not only in the natural sciences but also in the ethical and legal field. These challenges create a new response and raise the level of ethical and legal awareness in society as well as the ethical self-awareness of the individual in order to secure social justice in healthcare.
All of the aforementioned issues justifies the choice of research to understand the effectiveness of UNESCO’s universal ethical principles in the context of the epidemic crisis caused by COVID-19. It is necessary to search for criteria for an objective balance between the protection of public health and the maintenance of civil liberties, which requires joint efforts, a coherent level of impact, and general human resonance.
The methodology of work is based on many years of professional experience in the field of infectious diseases as well as on the knowledge of the bioethical concepts in the theory and practice of implementing international projects by the World Health Organization, the International Bioethics Committee (IBC) and Intergovernmental Bioethics Committee (IGBC) of UNESCO. It should be noted that by the time COVID-19 began to spread, the ethical regulatory resource that could potentially be used to manage the pandemic was a comprehensive and regulatory approved protocol. It is quite symbolic that the confrontation with the infection, caused by the coronavirus (SARS-2002), became a signal of sorts for the development of the first guide on ethical planning for pandemic periods in 2005. The specific nature of this guide was focused on the integrity of the conclusions and recommendations, based on an interdisciplinary approach to the study of health problems with the dominant importance of assessments in the field of bioethics. Subsequently, the inclusion of an ethical component in the World Health Organization format for influenza pandemic periods became an important step.
In terms of UNESCO’s commitment to responding to significant public health challenges, a special emphasis should be placed on the initiative of the joint session of IBC and UNESCO’s IGBC, which was held on September 9–10, 2014, to develop a declaration in response to the Ebola outbreak. The impact and significance of this event is in the fact that for the first time in the history of the fight against infections the response to the threat of a pandemic was expressed by the solidary voices of the respected and specialized structures of the system of the United Nations on bioethics, accorded with special powers from the Member States of UNESCO. The adopted declaration established the fundamental principles of making ethical decisions that have an influence on a global scope. The development of the document is carried out within a strict framework and is based on the division of different fields of activity within the UN structures, on respect for priorities and authorities as well as on the overarching strategy of management with a power of high moral influence. The first three provisions, in which a formal appeal to the international community and individual Member States of UNESCO is defined, serve as proof:
- Fully supporting the actions, taken by the United Nations, and recognizing the leading role of the World Health Organization;
- Reaffirming UNESCO’s role in the field of bioethics and mobilization in the face of disasters and rare diseases;
- Underlining the principles of social responsibility, solidarity, human dignity, equality, justice, non-discrimination, and other universal principles proclaimed in the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights of UNESCO in 2005.
In the substantive part of the document, the mission of “defining and implementing strategies to combat the epidemic, taking into account the ethical, social, and cultural characteristics of countries” is identified. In this context along with the obvious epidemiological importance, there is an appeal to Article 12 “Respect for cultural diversity and pluralism” of the Universal Declaration of UNESCO. In relation to COVID-19, the significance of this strategy is convincingly demonstrated by the specifics of the social conflicts in the course of the pandemic in different countries.
The next crucial message is “to strengthen the capacity of health systems so that they can resist the epidemic financially and economically as well as in organizational and humanitarian terms, preventing the spread of infection.” This message assumes the ethical fulfillment of the most important function of public health, which is social responsibility, the object of Article 14 “Social responsibility and health” and the special protocol of the International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO (2010). The example of the COVID-19 pandemic on a global scale revealed the deficit of all components and conditions of social responsibility, which posed the threat of a risk of a humanitarian catastrophe.
The vision of the document is manifested in the fact that “at the peak of the sanitary and epidemiological crisis it is necessary to encourage efforts in the field of scientific research; to support the development of adequate therapies as well as to take actions to assess the effectiveness of these therapies within the framework of the ethical management of the epidemic, and for this purpose to strengthen coordination mechanisms among researchers.” The call for cooperation in research is extremely relevant in the times of COVID-19, when, along with a certain openness, corporate and national interests have not been overcome. This practice contradicts the “letter and spirit” of the UNESCO Universal Declaration, which is reflected in Article 15 “Sharing of benefits”. The words of the French scientist and microbiologist Charles Nicolas, the Nobel Prize laureate of 1928, sound prophetic: “finding out about infectious diseases evokes in people a sense of the connection and solidarity between them; we are united by an overall threatening danger and this is enough for people to end their strife and to unite in fraternal solidarity against a common enemy.“
In conclusion, I would like to express the hope that the presented range of UNESCO’s ethical guidelines in the context of a health crisis, addressed each individual as well as humanity as a whole, clearly demonstrates the need to follow universal ethical criteria at all levels of cooperation in the name of global security of the present and future generations.
Olga Kubar, doctor of medical science, a leading researcher at St. Petersburg Pasteur Institute, member of the Bioethics Committee of the Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO, ex-member of the International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO