Deleuze: “Had I not done philosophy I would have done law”

For those too few of us who carry a flame for an idea or shape of community and if necessary law to come Deleuze provides us with some useful signposts and overall a working toolbox with which to tackle both the micro and macro of our daily encounters. The whole package of Deleuzian machines and assemblages can be taken up as an abstract discourse which too outsiders might appear devoid of any linkage to reality. The whole notion of Deleuzian lawyers is one that can easily raise a chuckle, but nevertheless some of us seem to persevere with playing with the law with this toolbox. Martin Hardie, martin.hardie@gmail.com, has managed bands and worked in Aboriginal Art and Craft centres. He has been a solicitor, and a barrister, acting in matters concerning administrative law and constitutional law, and particularly, as counsel for Australian Indigenous artists in their quest for copyright protection, the challenge by the current East Timorese Prime Minister to Australian legislation implementing an agreement with the Republic of Indonesia concerning the division of East Timor’s oil and gas resources, and, in a case concerning legislation in Australia legalising euthanasia. He has also been an advisor to various members of the former East Timorese resistance and government, a university lecturer, a cyclist, cycling journalist and team manager. He currently lives in Bilbao working as an English teacher and writer. His time is spent in the Basque Country with the ambition of becoming the archetype of life within communism; at the break of dawn a cyclist, during the day a teacher and a cook, cyber-conspiracist and correspondent, in the afternoons a student and philosopher and, at nights, simply pleasant company. His home at http://auskadi.tk/     

Reshaping informed consent in the biobanking context

In my article, I discuss the role of informed consent in the context of biobanking. I argue that the basic issue in understanding the role of the consent is one of identifying the interests at stake and determining which of these interests we intend to promote. The definition of the informational content represents only a consequential step. For this purpose, I analyse the legal status of human biological materials from three different perspectives: "material", "informational" and "relational". Informed consent produces different effects on each of these perspectives. From the material perspective, consent can influence the allocation of property rights over human tissue; from the informational point of view, consent is the legal instrument that permits control over personal data; while from the "relational" perspective, it is possible through consent to ensure that the person's personal beliefs are respected. The crucial point is that the legal effects that informed consent has on the three perspectives overlap. Therefore, in order to understand the role of informed consent holistically, in this article I analyse how these perspectives relate to each other. This analysis shows that the relationship between the perspectives can vary depending on the interests that we intend to promote. If we intend to promote the freedom of research, then the material dimension can prevail, whilst if we focus our attention on the interests of individuals then the informational and the relational dimensions will prevail. The challenge is to find a good balance between these two extremes.