Armenia completes ratification of Oviedo Convention

Armenia has completed the ratification of the Council of Europe’s Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, known as the Oviedo Convention, becoming the 30th state to do so.

The ratification document was deposited in Strasbourg on October 15 by Armenia’s Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe, Ambassador Armen Papikyan, in the presence of Deputy Secretary General Bjorn Berge.

The convention, which will enter into force for Armenia on February 1 next year, is the first legally binding international treaty designed to protect human dignity, rights and freedoms against possible abuses arising from advances in biology and medicine.

At its core, the Oviedo Convention asserts that the interests and welfare of human beings must prevail over the sole interests of science or society.