The course encompasses a wide range of issues including the historical and political backgrounds underlying the United Nations? Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its global policy implications. Modern bioethical topics such as cloning, euthanasia, abortion and the death penalty are extensively discussed. Special emphasis is placed on global, paradigmatic public health issues, such as the psychoactive drugs? worldwide spread and the HIV/AIDS pandemic, whose social, political and economic impact is illustrated in the broader context of the struggle for Human Rights and respect for existing cultural diversities.

*Course content subject to change