Dr. Ole Döring, Tarrytown 1

1. Engaging Multiple Layers of Civil Society - Towards Effective Ethical Governance Dr. Ole Döring, Tarrytown 1 Horst-Görtz-Stiftungsinstitut, Bonhoefferweg 3a,

2. Global Challenges • How can ethical governance be organised when effective national policies or a robust culture of law are missing? • Can „muddling-through“ continue to be our strategy? • How can we reclaim shared priorities of stakes in bioethics? • How can we work towards a culture of ethics, emancipated from political agendas or structural barriers such as legalistic or formal organization control? • What are the implications for effective global policies?

3. Global Challenges: some Chinese Issues • National • Genetic discrimination: illegal but practiced • Sex-selective abortion: illegal but practiced • Inter- or transnational • Therapeutic & reproductive tourism: morally banned • Organ trafficking: illegal but practiced • Is “implementation of good law” the problem?

4. Ethics Agenda Revisited • Policy purpose: • Communication (people) • Interaction (governing frastructures) • Translation (cultures / systems) • Governance function: • Organise system structures that make interfaces work • Manage inconsistencies, make diversity flourish • Prevent contradictions & double standards • Ethics frame: • Thin normative substance; rich empirical adaptivity • Remain true to core concerns, values & principles

5. „Thin“ Ethics Code • Respect for • the human being (general ethics) • justice (political ethics) • health (ethics in biomedicine), • implies being attentive to • context • actual meaning and impact & • care for practical strategies to advance and empower the people to organise their lives in a healthy, just and resepctful manner.

6. Procedural • Open-ended provisionary system: • Undogmatic, coherent, redundant & self-learning • Encourage humanism in any form and context • Identify unfair & unfeasible instruments (e.g., IC, ER) • Requires multiple layers of checks and balances, monitoring, reporting, reward failure report, adjustment: • Apply the already existing policy tools, reality set-on • Coopt private sector and civil actors, bi- & multilateral • Who shall define and decide what works and what’s fair? : • Open plural process (participation), no expertocracy (exclusion) • Clarifying code of modesty and dedication

7. Reflection • Clarify language & perspective: • Biology • Politics, Law, Economy • Cultural / system hegemony • Attentive approach: • Mindful of tension between form & substance • Self-reflection and sincerity • Sense of proportion in defining action priorities • Counter ideology, hypocrisy, fear and hype: • Thin normative substance; rich empirical base • Remain true to core concerns, values & principles • Where are the good models?

8. Opportunities for Global Humanity • Inspire and enact humane concern as policy generator • Alliances beyond traditional entrenchments: care and pragmatism • Prudential subsidiarity introduces plurality and orchestration of power - enhances • Chance to rehabilitate ethics as a global venture • Realistic? Rather perpetuate the hegemony of historically contingent systems? • Courage and discipline to take humanism serious for all • Example for other areas of modernisation?

9. Is “implementation of good law” the problem? • Twofold cultural issues: Chinese and Global Modernity • Meaning of policy instruments such as law is context specific & needs to be adapted and introduced properly • The emergence of a new culture of humane ethics can be supported by good models, both, within countries and trans-national. • The “developed” North is obliged to (1) find better policies (respect, justice & health) and (2) overcome double international standards, to build trust and commitment.