The Emergence of Biolaw: The European Experience and the Evolutionary Approach

This book introduces “biolaw” as an integrated and distinct field in contemporary legal studies. Corresponding to the legal dimension of bioethics, the term “biolaw” is already in use in academic and research activities to denote legal issues emerging mostly from advanced technological applications. This book is a genuine attempt to rationalize the field of biolaw after almost four decades of continuous production of relevant legislation and judgments worldwide. This experience is a robust basis for defending a) a separate legal object, covering the total of legal norms that govern the management of life as a natural phenomenon in all its possible forms, and b) an “evolutionary” approach that opens the discussion on a future conciliation of legal regulation with the Theory of Evolution on the ground of biolaw.

Takis Vidalis (1963) received his PhD from the Law School at the University of Athens. In 2001, he was elected a senior researcher and legal advisor to the Hellenic National Bioethics Commission.

Author of 5 books and numerous papers on biolaw, bioethics, medical ethics and law, human rights, philosophy of law, AI ethics and law, and environmental law, he presented original research in more than 100 international and national conferences and workshops.

Takis is the founder of the BioMedLex service (www.biomedlex.gr), specializing in the law of biomedical research and red biotechnology.

Currently, he teaches law and ethics in advanced technologies at the International Hellenic University, the Law School at the University of Athens, the Medical School at the University of Thrace, and the Open University of Cyprus. 

President of the Research Ethics Committee of the leading research Institute in Greece “Democritus,” Takis is now a member of the European Groupon Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE).