The world seems ever smaller and ever quicker: environmental, public health, industrial and cultural processes operate ever more on a global, rather than a local scale. Does this process, sometimes known as globalisation, draw us closer together, or drive us further apart, from a moral point of view? In recent years, bioethics has addressed many of the issues that arise in the context of globalisation: solidarity, conflict, and autonomy; human rights, liberty and toleration; the political and economic context of health care and inequalities in health; environmental and public health change. At the same time, bioethics has often been merely an agent of obscure political forces, and has been challenged for its emphasis on autonomy over considerations of justice. This study brings together scientists from the fields of medicine, law, and philosophy. The texts are the results of a conference the Europäische Akademie held in 2003. The group developed its thesis in open discussions of foundational and applied problems of bioethics from an interdisciplinary and international perspective.

Zusammenfassung
The Europäische Akademie zur Erforschung von Folgen wissenschaftlich-tech- scher Entwicklungen Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler GmbH is concerned with the sci- tific study of the consequences of scientific and technological advance for indiv- ual and societal life and for the natural environment. The main focus is the exa- nation of mid- and long-term processes that are especially influenced by natur- and engineering sciences and the medical disciplines. As an independent scientific institution, the Europäische Akademie pursues a dialogue with politics and society. The work of the Europäische Akademie is mainly conducted by temporary int- disciplinary project teams that develop recommendations for al long-term reliable science and technology policy. Above that, the Europäische Akademie organises international conferences on timely issues that are connected to its research p- gramme. The present volume aims at attracting attention to moral problems caused by the globalisation of medicine and the life-sciences. Finding acceptable and re- able solutions for these bioethical problems will to a large extent determine the quality of our living together in an increasingly small world.

Inhalt
Cultural Rationality and Moral Principles.- Morality and Culture: Are Ethics Culture-Dependent?.- Neither Golden Nugget nor Frankenstein. The need to Re-embed Food Biotechnologies in Sociocultural Contexts.- Beyond GM Foods: Genomics, Biotechnology and Global Health Equity.- Patents on Biomaterial A New Colonialism or a Means for Technology Transfer and Benefit-Sharing?.- From the Corporeal to the Informational: Exploring the Scope of Benefit Sharing Agreements and their Applicability to Sequence Databases.- Access to Essential Drugs, Human Rights and Global Justice.- Access to Essential Drugs: the Ethical Challenge of Allocating Obligations.- Why is it Morally Wrong to Clone a Human Being? How to Evaluate Arguments of Biopolitics, Biomorality, and Bioethics.- Bioethics and (Public) Policy Advice.