Ethical Frameworks for CBRNE Crises: Toward Shared Concepts and Their Practical Application

For more than a half-century in the field of bioethics, ethical principles generally considered applicable across religions and national boundaries and embedded in international guidelines included autonomy, beneficence, respect for human dignity, and justice. For more than a decade, there has been a flourishing of philosophical, social, and other discourse regarding health ethics, much of which has benefited from a rich diversity of scholars and experts who have explored health ethics from a wide range of perspectives, including bioethicists from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Africa, philosophers from Cameroon and India, public health physicians from Egypt, and biomedical researchers from Argentina and Venezuela. Given that we live in an increasingly global system, consideration of these new concepts of and frameworks for bioethics is essential for all those engaged in preventing and/or addressing the aftermath of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or explosive (CBRNE) crises. This chapter presents several of these frameworks, as well as an alternative global ethical framework relevant for CBRNE. An example of the practical application of this framework – to the use of “big data” to prevent and address consequences of CBRNE threats – is also presented.