U.S, Member of the IBC

Carter Snead has been designated a member of UNESCO's International Bioethics Committee. That Committee is a body of 36 independent experts that follows progress in the life sciences and its applications in order to ensure respect for human dignity and freedom. The IBC provides a global forum for in-depth bioethical reflection, encouraged by its secretariat to expose the issues at stake. The IBC does not pass judgment on one position or another. Instead, it is up to each country, particularly lawmakers, to reflect that nation's societal choices within the framework of national legislation and to decide between the different positions.

Professor Carter Snead is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame and a Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He previously served as General Counsel to the President's Council on Bioethics. From 2004-2005, he served as the chief negotiator and head of the United States delegation to UNESCO for the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights.

His research and scholarship explore the possibility, wisdom, and mechanisms of the governance of biomedical science, medicine, and technology according to ethical principles. He was the principal drafter of the President's Council on Bioethics' 2004 report, “Reproduction and Responsibility: The Regulation of New Biotechnologies,” a controversial assessment of the governance (both public and private) of the activities at the intersection of assisted reproduction, human embryo research, and genetics. He has also published on the implications of neuroimaging techniques in criminal legal proceedings.

Professor Snead received his B.A. from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, and his J.D., magna cum laude, from Georgetown University. He clerked for the Hon. Paul J. Kelly, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit from 1999-2000.

Read more in his Notre Dame website.