My thesis deals with the child's right to know his or her genetic origin. It is a universal human right guaranteed by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Article 7, paragraph 1 states that every child has a right to know his or her parents, if possible. European Court of Human Rights repeatedly postulated that the right to know one's origin is an integral part of the right to respect for private and family life provided by the Article 8 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The purpose of my work is to explain on particular problems, to what extent is this right respected in the Czech Republic, in conformity with its international obligations. The text is based on valid legal status to June 21, 2011, with regard to proposed changes in the upcoming adoption of the new Civil Code. The text is systematically divided into seven chapters. The first chapter is focused in general on the right to know one's own origin in the human rights dimension. The following chapters examine particular relevant sections of family law and its imperfections. Firstly, I discuss the issue of determination and denial of parenting with an emphasis on emerging deliberate disharmony between biological and legal parenthood. Furthermore, I focus on the issue of adoption,...

O direito à verdade frente a graves violações de direitos humanos foi criado recentemente e tem um significado jurídico que permanece incerto em diversos aspectos relevantes. As divergências em torno do seu conceito, que ainda está em formação, geram problemas práticos quando se busca tornar esse direito efetivo. A tese analisa a questão que está na base do debate jurídico-dogmático sobre esse direito, a saber, o significado que o termo verdade adquire ao se tornar o seu objeto. É feita uma investigação sobre a forma como este tema é abordado pelos estudos sobre justiça de transição e sobre como se deu a emergência e o desenvolvimento do direito à verdade no direito internacional dos direitos humanos, nas esferas universal e interamericana. O objetivo é, depois, buscar compreender o que, de um ponto de vista teórico, fez com que surgisse na história e no pensamento político-jurídico a necessidade de sua criação e passou a alimentar o esforço para a sua conceituação. Essa análise aponta que a verdade almejada com o direito em estudo tem outras dimensões para além da busca de informações desconhecidas sobre casos individuais de violações a direitos humanos. Como o tema da verdade, sabidamente, é de enorme extensão no campo filosófico, o presente trabalho faz uso de temas de reflexão de Hannah Arendt, que para essa temática tem tido grande repercussão inclusive em sede doutrinária, com o fim de, por meio de um desenvolvimento extensivo, examinar as diferentes dimensões do problema. / The right to the truth concerning gross human rights violations was created recently, and has a legal meaning that remains uncertain in many relevant aspects. The disagreements about its concept, which is still in development, cause practical problems when one tries to make this right effective. The thesis analyses the issue that underlies the legal-dogmatic debate about this right, i.e., the meaning of the term truth when it becomes its object. An investigation is undertaken on how this theme is addressed by studies on transitional justice and also on the emergence and development of the right to the truth in international human rights law, in the universal and in the inter-American systems. The goal is then to try to understand what, from a theoretical point of view, led to the emergence in history and political-legal thought of the need for its creation, and began to feed the effort to its conceptualization. This analysis indicates that the truth sought with the right examined here has dimensions other than the search for unknown information about individual cases of human rights violations. The theme of truth being, as known, a subject of enormous extension in the philosophical field, the present study makes use of topics of reflection by Hannah Arendt, which have had a great repercussion on this subject even in legal dogmatic thought, in order to examine, through an extensive development, the different dimensions of the problem. By doing so, it is intended to shed light on the way the conceptualization of the right to the truth is being consolidated and on the difficulties it faces.

When biological information about an individual is produced in healthcare or research settings, ethical questions may arise about whether the individual herself should be able to access it. This thesis argues that the individual’s identity-related interests warrant serious attention in framing and addressing these questions. Identity interests are largely neglected in bioethical, policy and legal debates about information access – except where information about genetic parentage is concerned. Even there, the relationship between information and identity, and the interests involved, remain unclear. This thesis seeks to fill this conceptual gap and challenge this exceptionalism. It does so by developing a normative account of the roles that a wide range of information about our health, bodies and biological relationships – ‘personal bioinformation’ – can play in the construction of our self-conceptions. This account is developed in two steps. First, building on existing philosophical theories of narrative self-constitution, this thesis proposes that personal bioinformation has a critical role to play in the construction of identity narratives that remain coherent and support us in navigating our embodied experiences. Secondly, drawing on empirical literature reporting individuals’ attitudes to receiving three categories of personal bioinformation (about donor conception, genetic disease susceptibility, and neuroimaging-based psychiatric diagnoses), the thesis seeks to illustrate, demonstrate the plausibility of, and to refine this theoretically-based proposition. From these foundations, it is argued that we can have strong identity-related interests in whether and how we are able to access bioinformation about ourselves. The practical implications of this conclusion are then explored. It is argued that identity interests are not reducible to other interests (for example, in health protection) commonly weighed in information disclosure decisions. They, therefore, warrant attention in their own right. An ethical framework is developed to guide delivery of this. This framework sets out the ethical responsibilities of those who hold bioinformation about us to respond to our identity interests in information disclosure practices and policies. The framework is informed by indications from the illustrative examples that our interests engaged as much by how bioinformation is communicated as whether it is disclosed. Moreover, these interests are not uniformly engaged by all bioinformation in all circumstances and there is potential for identity detriment as well as benefit. The ethical framework highlights the opportunities for and challenges of responding to identity interests and the scope and limits of potential disclosers’ responsibilities to do so. It also makes recommendations as to the principles and characteristics of identity-supporting disclosure practices.

O direito à verdade frente a graves violações de direitos humanos foi criado recentemente e tem um significado jurídico que permanece incerto em diversos aspectos relevantes. As divergências em torno do seu conceito, que ainda está em formação, geram problemas práticos quando se busca tornar esse direito efetivo. A tese analisa a questão que está na base do debate jurídico-dogmático sobre esse direito, a saber, o significado que o termo verdade adquire ao se tornar o seu objeto. É feita uma investigação sobre a forma como este tema é abordado pelos estudos sobre justiça de transição e sobre como se deu a emergência e o desenvolvimento do direito à verdade no direito internacional dos direitos humanos, nas esferas universal e interamericana. O objetivo é, depois, buscar compreender o que, de um ponto de vista teórico, fez com que surgisse na história e no pensamento político-jurídico a necessidade de sua criação e passou a alimentar o esforço para a sua conceituação. Essa análise aponta que a verdade almejada com o direito em estudo tem outras dimensões para além da busca de informações desconhecidas sobre casos individuais de violações a direitos humanos. Como o tema da verdade, sabidamente, é de enorme extensão no campo filosófico, o presente trabalho faz uso de temas de reflexão de Hannah Arendt, que para essa temática tem tido grande repercussão inclusive em sede doutrinária, com o fim de, por meio de um desenvolvimento extensivo, examinar as diferentes dimensões do problema. / The right to the truth concerning gross human rights violations was created recently, and has a legal meaning that remains uncertain in many relevant aspects. The disagreements about its concept, which is still in development, cause practical problems when one tries to make this right effective. The thesis analyses the issue that underlies the legal-dogmatic debate about this right, i.e., the meaning of the term truth when it becomes its object. An investigation is undertaken on how this theme is addressed by studies on transitional justice and also on the emergence and development of the right to the truth in international human rights law, in the universal and in the inter-American systems. The goal is then to try to understand what, from a theoretical point of view, led to the emergence in history and political-legal thought of the need for its creation, and began to feed the effort to its conceptualization. This analysis indicates that the truth sought with the right examined here has dimensions other than the search for unknown information about individual cases of human rights violations. The theme of truth being, as known, a subject of enormous extension in the philosophical field, the present study makes use of topics of reflection by Hannah Arendt, which have had a great repercussion on this subject even in legal dogmatic thought, in order to examine, through an extensive development, the different dimensions of the problem. By doing so, it is intended to shed light on the way the conceptualization of the right to the truth is being consolidated and on the difficulties it faces.

Nowadays, anonymous sperm donation is indeed a globally discussed topic: the popularity of the use of assisted reproduction technology for the purpose of conception is directly proportional to increasing infertility and technological progress. Also, the duration of its use already started to show, with the first generation of opinionated anonymous donor children growing up. The aim of my work is to analyze what are the today's Western society's current ethical and legal views on the anonymous sperm donation and its alternatives, as well as what they should be, and to demonstrate these on the example of Canada, United Kingdom and Australia. In the first two chapters, I outline the context of ethical and legal thinking about anonymous sperm donation: I analyze the concept and implications of the infertility, as well as the development and types of methods of assisted reproduction. Further, I proceed from the basis of ethical reasoning and the determination whether the right to know one's origins, implying the right to know the circumstances of one's conception, exist, and its competition with the rights of parents and donors in the third chapter, to its legal grounds. First, in the fourth chapter, I deal with legislation on the right to know one's origins and other related rights in the international...

This dissertation explores the battle to democratize the national security state, 1970-1978. It examines the neo-progressive movement to institutionalize a new domestic policy regime, in an attempt to force government transparency, protect individual privacy from state intrusion, and create new judicial and legislative checks on domestic security operations. It proceeds chronologically, first outlining the state's overwhelming response to the domestic unrest of the 1960s. During this period, the Department of Justice developed new capacities to better predict urban unrest, growing a computerized databank that contained millions of dossiers on dissenting Americans and the Department of Defense greatly expanded existing capacities, applying cold war counterinsurgency and counterintelligence techniques developed abroad to the problems of protests and riots at home. The remainder of the dissertation examines how the state's secret response to unrest and disorder became public in the early 1970s. It traces the development of a loose coalition of reformers who challenged domestic security policy and coordinated legislative and litigative strategies to check executive power. / History

The therapeutic privilege is a defence in terms of which a doctor may withhold information from a patient if disclosure of such information could harm the patient. This study explores the defence of therapeutic privilege and provides a critical evaluation. A comparative investigation is undertaken, while arguments springing from a variety of disciplines are also incorporated. A number of submissions are made for limiting the ambit of the defence. The main submission is that the therapeutic privilege should comply with all the requirements of the defence of necessity. In addition, it should contain some of the safeguards afforded to the patient by the requirements of the defence of negotiorum gestio so that therapeutic privilege is out of the question if medical treatment is administered against the patient's will, or the doctor has reason to believe (or knows) that the patient will refuse to undergo an intended intervention once properly informed. / Jurisprudence / L.L.M. (Jurisprudence)

R I G H T T O R E S P E C T F O R P R I V A T E A N D F A M I L Y L I F E I N T H E C A S E - L A W O F T H E E U R O P E A N C O U R T O F H U M A N R I G H T S Abstract The aim of the thesis is to explain wording and application of the Article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the Convention) from the perspective of the European Court of Human Rights (the ECHR). The scope of Article 8, which guarantees the right to respect for private and family life, is very broad. For this reason the thesis especially deals with the issue of the right of the child to know his/her origin and information about his/her early childhood. In particular it attempts to outline the way how the ECHR deals with the conflict of the right to know one's origin with the right of the parent to stay anonymous. The thesis is divided into five chapters which illustrate the particular aspects of the application of Article 8. These chapters are linked through the judgements Gaskin, Mikulić, Odiévre, Jäggi and Phinirikadou which are related to the right of the child to know his/her origin. Chapter 1 provides with the general introduction to the protection of human rights at the European level and also analyses the Convention and the ECHR. The goal of chapter 2 is to outline the inner...

Determination of Parenthood - Alexandra Hrušáková Abstract In my thesis "Determination of Parenthood", I focused on the largest area of family law. Everyone's life is influenced by his family the whole life. And there are many consequences connected to the relation between a child and his parents. My topic responds lively to the changes brought by current scientific and technical progress and dynamic development and metamorphoses in our society. I tried to describe it in a complex way, but in order to put accent on the most important segments of this problem. From the times of ancient Rome there exists the principle "mater semper certa est, pater incertus", which means that the identity of the mother is always certain, but the father isn't. However there exist some situations in which the principle could not be so clear. These situations created objective of this thesis. This thesis is divided into ten chapters. In every single chapter I wasn't only working with Czech law, but I also attempted to compare it to legislation of another countries The first chapter called Parenthood and Child is dealing with the theoretical definition of the components of a relation among parents and children and the rights and obligations rising from this relation. The next chapter presents The Right of the child to know his or...

1950 m. Europos Tarybos Žmogaus teisių ir pagrindinių laisvių apsaugos konvencijoje įtvirtintas rinkinys teisių ir laisvių (teisė į gyvybę, kankinimų draudimas, teisė į teisingą teismą, teisė į privataus ir šeimos gyvenimo gerbimą ir kt.), taikomų kiekvienam, esančiam valstybės, ratifikavusios šią Konvenciją, jurisdikcijoje. Tačiau čia nėra išskiriamos vaikų, kaip specifinės socialinės grupės, reikalingos didesnės apsaugos, teisės. Visgi remiantis tuo, kad EŽTK įtvirtintos teisės taikomos „kiekvienam“, teigtina, kad jos taikomos ir vaikams. Šiame darbe autorė siekia atskleisti, kokios teisės yra užtikrinamos vaikams EŽTK 8 straipsnio plotmėje, taip pat tam tikrus, iš šių teisių kylančius, probleminius aspektus. Siekiant šio tikslo, ypač didelis dėmesys skiriamas EŽTT jurisprudencijai, kadangi remiantis šio Teismo praktika ne tik nustatomas tam tikrų teisių turinys ir jo kaita, bet ir atskleidžiama vaiko teisių apsaugai aktuali problematika. Pirmoje šio darbo dalyje bandoma apibrėžti, kas apskritai yra vaikystė, kodėl teisiškai svarbu nustatyti tiek aukštutinę, tiek žemutinę vaiko amžiaus ribas bei koks yra vaiko teisinis statusas. Nagrinėjama įvairi mokslinė literatūra bei įvairūs tarptautiniai ir nacionaliniai teisės aktai atskleidė, kad daugiausia problemų kyla nustatant žemutinę vaiko amžiaus ribą, kadangi šis klausimas tiesiogiai susijęs su abortų reguliavimu. Pagal kai kurių valstybių, tame tarpe ir Lietuvos, teisinį reguliavimą, matyti, kad neretai civilinėje teisėje... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The 1950's Convention of European Council on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms establishes a set of rights and fundamental freedoms (the right to life, prohibition of torture, the right to a fair trial, the right to respect for private and family life etc.) applicable to everyone within the jurisdiction of the state that ratified the Convention. Children are a very specific social group, which needs greater protection. However their rights are not distinguished in the Convention. On the basis that the rights enshrined in the ECHR are applicable to „everyone“, it may be maintained that those rights can be applicable to children as well. The author of this work aims to reveal the rights that are guaranteed for children in the context of the article 8 of the ECHR. To this end, particular attention is paid to the jurisprudence of the ECtHR. According to the case law of this Court, it can not only be determined the contents and evolution of specific rights, but also relevant problematic issues for the protection of the rights of a child can be revealed. In the first part of this work the author attempts to define a childhood, to identify both the upper and lower limits of the child's age and the child's legal status. By examining different scientific literature and various international and national legislations it was revealed that most of the problems arise in determining the lower limit of the age of a child, since this issue is directly related to the regulation of... [to full text]