Informed consent and human rights

Many controversial issues such as euthanasia, assisted suicide, and refusal of the treatment require the collaboration of medical ethics and law. The necessity for medical interventions to be based on the free will of those concerned should also be guaranteed by legal systems. Thus, emerges the concept/law of informed consent. Informed consent, the acceptance or the refusal of the treatment after being informed about all the necessary information, sprouts from human dignity and autonomy. Even informed consent can be asserted as a distinct human right due to its close affiliation with human dignity and the most important human rights such as right to self determination, right to life or right to health. This recognition is important for the fulfillment of the aims of the law of informed consent and in order for the patients' autonomy and their rights to self determination to get beyond the papers. For this reason, the study aims to present findings and suggestions in order for the right to informed consent be operative and effective. In this parallel, the study scrutinizes informed consent under the headings of its ethical and moral dimension, what is informed consent and the law of informed consent. While the first part prepares the necessary infrastructure for the acceptance of informed consent as a human right, the second part constitutes the technical aspect of the study. The third and final part is important because it points to the position of informed consent in international and national law and what needs to be done to improve this position. Keywords: informed consent, patient autonomy, right to self-determination, medical ethics, human rights