The internationalisation of assisted dying

Penney Lewis studied mathematics, law and philosophy in the US, Canada and the UK. She is Professor of Law at King’s College London where she teaches Medical Law and Criminal Evidence. She is a member of the UK Donation Ethics Committee, Vice-Chair of the King’s College London Research Ethics Committee and a member of the Clinical Ethics Committee of St Christopher’s Hospice.

Penney is the author of a number of articles on assisted dying and her monograph Assisted Dying and Legal Change was published in 2007 by Oxford University Press. She has also published articles and chapters dealing with a wide range of medical law topics, including wrongful life, advance decision-making, refusal of treatment, medical treatment of children and medical procedures which are against the interests of incompetent adults, such as non-therapeutic research. Penney’s project is entitled The Internationalisation of Assisted Dying. She will examine the impact on legal change on assisted dying of the bottom-up pressures which result from globalisation, in particular from the greater mobility of persons, the greater accessibility of (online) information and the greater openness of health care institutions (whether in the public, private or voluntary sector) towards individuals who come from different states. She will also consider how legal positions on non-resident access to assisted dying are reached in permissive states, and how legal change occurs on this issue.