prof. dr. mr. Britta van Beers

One of the main themes in her re­search con­cerns the legal and le­gal-philo­soph­i­cal mean­ing of con­cepts such as per­son, hu­man­ity and dig­nity, es­pe­cially in the light of  bio­med­ical de­vel­op­ments. Of spe­cial in­ter­est to her are the sym­bolic di­men­sions and functions of the law within the reg­u­la­tion of new tech­no­log­i­cal is­sues. Good il­lus­tra­tions are the in­ter­na­tional books that she co-edited on the con­cept of hu­man­ity across in­ter­na­tional law and bi­o­law (Van Beers, Cor­rias & Werner 2014), on the sym­bolic di­men­sions of law in gen­eral, and bi­o­law in par­tic­u­lar (Van Klink, Van Beers & Poort 2016) and on personalised medicine, individual choice and the common good (Van Beers, Sterckx & Dickenson 2018). She is par­tic­u­larly in­trigued by the legal and philo­soph­i­cal ques­tions raised by the reg­u­la­tion of as­sisted re­pro­duc­tive tech­nolo­gies, such as wrong­ful birth and wrong­ful life ac­tions, human germline gene editing, sur­ro­gacy, and re­pro­duc­tive tourism.

Main publications:

• B.C. van Beers & L. Bosch, 'A Revolution by Stealth: A Legal-Ethical Analysis of the Rise of Pre-Conception Authorization of Surrogacy Arrangements', The New Bioethics 2020.
• B.C. van Beers, 'Rewriting the human genome, rewriting human rights law? Human rights, human dignity, and human germline modification in the CRISPR era', Journal of Law and the Biosciences 2020.
• B.C. van Beers, S. Sterckx & D. Dickenson (eds.), Personalised Medicine, Individual Choice and the Common Good, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2018.
• B.C. van Beers, 'The Changing Nature of Law's Natural Person. The Impact of Emerging Technologies on the Legal Concept of the Person', German Law Journal 2017.
• B.C. van Beers, 'Van slaapkamer naar vruchtbaarheidskliniek. Deseksualisering van voortplanting en de 'uitbarsting van verantwoordelijkheid', Ars Aequi 2016.
• B.C. van Beers, 'Is Europe 'Giving in to Baby Markets?' Reproductive Tourism in Europe and the Gradual Erosion of Existing Legal Limits to Reproductive Markets', Medical Law Review 2015.
• B.C. van Beers, Persoon en lichaam in het recht. Menselijke waardigheid en zelfbeschikking in het tijdperk van de medische biotechnologie (dissertatie VU, The Hague: BJU, ISBN 978-90-8974-177-6).   

Van Beers teaches the following courses:

• Recht, ethiek en biotechnologie (Law, ethics and biotechnology, B3, part of the legal minor Juridische uitdagingen van de 21e eeuw)

• Bioethics, technology and law (master)

• Law and ethics of reproductive technologies (B3, part of the university minor Technology, law and ethics)

• Encyclopedie II (Philosophy of law, B3)

Additionally, she coordinates the university minor Technology, law and ethics

• Gezondheidsraad | Den Haag | lid beraadsgroep | 2024-05-14 - present

Ancillary activities are updated daily