Comparative health law and the harmonisation of patients’ rights in Europe

Abstract:

This contribution contains a plea for more comparative health law research in Europe. On the one hand a common approach to the right to health care and to the individual patients’ rights is becoming more and more apparent in Europe. The Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine of the Council of Europe may even be regarded as the common European standard for patient’s rights.

On the other hand the existence of such a common standard is not enough to conclude that the needs of patients to have their rights treated equally in Europe have been addressed. Commonly accepted principles as informed consent may in practice be implemented in very different ways. Up to now almost no systematic comparative research based on a case law approach rather than by means of exegesis of codal provisions has been undertaken in order to discover the convergences and divergences in the way such principles are implemented and to explain and interpret the importance of the differences. However, this knowledge is indispensable in order to make informed decisions at the European level about the harmonisation of patients’ rights.