Advance health care directives: towards a coordinated European policy?

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to compare the different existing approaches to advance health care directives within the European context, and to explore the possibility of reaching a deeper consensus among countries on this subject. To this end, it first discusses the shortcomings of Article 9 of the Council of Europe's Biomedicine Convention. Second, it offers a comparative analysis of the legal status of advance directives in a number of European countries. Finally, it presents the conclusions of an international interdisciplinary workshop focused on this topic that was held in Zurich in June 2008.