Abstract
Over the past several decades, over 100 countries have passed legislation banning commercial organ transplantation. What explains this rapid, global diffusion of laws? Based on qualitative data from in-depth interviews, historical analysis, and secondary sources, this paper explores the role played by the medical epistemic community and human rights in the global spread of laws against the organ trade. In addition to shaping, guiding, and influencing norms and approaches to transplantation, the epistemic community has been instrumental in the development of various resolutions, policy initiatives, recommended practices, statements, legislation, and model laws. Moreover, the epistemic community helped position the organ trade as an issue of societal and global importance, and it persistently encouraged states to undertake actions, such as implementing legislation, to combat the organ trade. Critically, the epistemic community’s efforts against the organ trade incorporated the concepts of human rights, integrity, and dignity, which had diffused globally and become institutionalized in the period after WWII.
Highlights
Transplantation, the process of replacing failing organs in one individual with healthy organs from another, is “hailed as one of the great miracles of modern science” ([1], p. 9) and celebrated as “one of the major accomplishments of the last half of the twentieth century” ([2], p. 20)
Relying on multiple sources of data allows for the convergence of various lines of inquiry and strengthens validity [7,8], and is important in revealing the role played by epistemic communities in combating the organ trade
The medical epistemic community was especially active in expanding discussion and disseminating analysis of transplantation and the organ trade, as specialists authored dozens of articles published in important journals, including The Lancet, Transplantation Proceedings, is a potential donor or not.”
Summary
Transplantation, the process of replacing failing organs in one individual with healthy organs from another, is “hailed as one of the great miracles of modern science” ([1], p. 9) and celebrated as “one of the major accomplishments of the last half of the twentieth century” ([2], p. 20). The most active global actor in promoting efforts against the organ trade, the epistemic community constitutes a network of various regional and transnational actors (individuals and organizations, such as the Transplantation Society (TTS), World Health Organization (WHO), and the International Society of Nephrology (ISN)). As an important transnational actor with broad global authority, the epistemic community has not been reviewed in detail. I attended the World Transplant Congress (WTC) in July of 2014, allowing me to observe dynamics of the global transplantation community. Relying on multiple sources of data allows for the convergence of various lines of inquiry and strengthens validity [7,8], and is important in revealing the role played by epistemic communities in combating the organ trade
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