각국의 국가생명윤리관련위원회 규정을 통한 우리의 국가생명윤리심의위원회 개선 방안

Abstract

The Bioethics and Safety Act of 2005 established the National Bioethics Deliberative Council (hereinafter NBDC) to deliberate the issues on bioethics and safety in the area of life science and biotechnology. NBDC has been expected to address the most controversial topics on bioethics and safety with due process, including the transparency of resolving process, use of expertise for reasonable resolution, and attainment of democratic resolution through receiving the various opinions. However, it went to the opposite way and got severe criticism. Most of all, the composition of the members of it was the target of criticism. It also has other problems such as the problem of using deliberation in its name, the vagueness of its purpose, the need to supplement the role and functions of it, and the need to establish the supportive office including staffs. In order to give some advices and to find methods for solving these problems, the relevant bioethics councils of several advanced countries including US, UK, Germany, and France were examined in this article. After several trial and errors, they have made their own councils be the center of solving the issues on bioethics and safety through the cooperation and communication with the experts and the public. Therefore, this article tries to derive some beneficial aspects from these councils. Then, some recommendations to improve the role and functions of our NBDC will be given.