Ebook: Medical Decision-Making on Behalf of Young Children: A Comparative Perspective

In the wake of the Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans cases, there emerged a wide-ranging international conversation about the courts’ role in disputes between parents and medical professionals over the treatment of young children. Central issues in this debate include the question of the appropriate threshold for judicial intervention, the different balances that can be struck in weighing up the rights and interests of the child, the parents’ rights and responsibilities, and the relative roles of medical professionals and the courts.
This collection provides a comparative perspective on these issues by bringing together analyses from a range of jurisdictions across Europe, North and South America, Africa and Asia. This is particularly important as parents are increasingly seeking treatment abroad when overseas doctors are prepared to offer the child a treatment that domestic doctors will not. By contextualising the differences and similarities, and drawing out the cultural and social values that inform the approach in different countries, this volume will be highly valuable to scholars across jurisdictions, not only to inform their own local debate on how best to navigate such cases, but also to foster interjurisdictional debate on these issues.