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wish to donate their organs after their death, in order to increase the availability of organs and
tissues obtained post-mortem. Finally, the principle according to which the human body and its
parts shall not, as such, give rise to financial gain is part of the legal acquis of the Council of
Europe. This principle was enacted by article 21 of the Convention on Human Rights and
Biomedicine and reiterated in its Additional Protocol on Transplantation of Organs and Tissues
of Human Origin.
41.
The Steering Committee on Bioethics (CDBI) of the European Health Committee
(CDSP) also works on the trafficking of organs in the framework of the Council of Europe.
Among its activities, the CDBI aims to harmonize the policies of member States as far as
possible and to prepare additional protocols to the Convention on human rights and biomedicine
on ethical and legal questions related to different topics, such as organ transplantation. In
June 2005, the Committee published the responses of 40 member States to a questionnaire on
organ trafficking. Asked about the existence of allegations that residents have been travelling
abroad to illegally sell or procure organs, the Committee noted that five States (Albania, Croatia,
Cyprus, France and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) responded
positively, without specifying if it involved children. Further asked about any official
investigations having taken place in the past to ascertain allegations of organ trafficking, seven
States responded positively (Albania, France, Georgia, Germany, the Russian Federation, Turkey
and the United Kingdom) but only Albania mentioned a case involving a child.
42.
Another regional scheme developed on the regional level is the Eurotransplant
International Foundation. It is responsible for the mediation and allocation of organ donation
procedures in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Croatia (a
candidate country). In this international collaborative framework, the participants include all
transplant hospitals, tissue-typing laboratories and hospitals where organ donations take place.
3. Other initiatives
43.
On a non-governmental level, the Special Rapporteur would like to mention some of the
initiatives undertaken. The work of the Bellagio Task Force on Securing Bodily Integrity for the
Socially Disadvantaged in Transplant Surgery (1994-1996) was developed by Columbia
University in order to produce a document on the use of organs for transplantation. The report
that emerged from the Task Force 7 documented the many abuses that flow from the traffic in
organs, including the sale of organs in countries such as India and the use of organs from
executed prisoners, in countries such as China. It also analysed the complex sources of rumours
of organ theft, which have not been documented but nevertheless point to the pervasive fears of a
loss of bodily integrity by vulnerable populations. Its main recommendation is for the
establishment of a permanent monitoring body through the creation of an international human
donor surveillance committee that could firstly serve as a clearing-house for information on
organ donation practices, and secondly, produce an annual review of declarations by
international transplant and human rights groups on organ donation and examine the ethical
issues in donation.
44.
In a follow-up to the Bellagio Task Force, Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Lawrence Cohen
of the Department of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley, with support from the
Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation) conducted ethnographic research in sites in Brazil,
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