“Absolutely Essential”: Bioethics and the Rules-Based International Order

The field that came to be known as bioethics in the late 1960s is an integral part of the liberal international order intentionally developed in the aftermath of the catastrophe of World War II. Following the Russian war in Ukraine there is every reason to believe that the set of norms and institutions that preserved peace in Europe through the first Cold War will be revised according to new assumptions that will structure international relations in a second Cold War. Bioethics will need to adapt to the conditions of the new Cold War, as it was shaped by the conditions of the last.