As a result of the analysis of international normative acts, monitoring reports, practice of foreign countries, national legislation and law enforcement practice, statistical data, information obtained on the basis of author’s public opinion poll, a comprehensive study of theoretical-legal understanding of essence, preconditions of formation and development, aspects of legal legalization of somatic human rights as a group of rights of the new generation in the modern doctrine of constitutionalism on the basis of the developed author’s system of methodology.
The dissertation generalizes the modern understanding of constitutionalism as a legal ideology that has absorbed all positive axiological value categories and postulates of state-building and law-making processes in a democratic state to achieve consensus, harmony and justice of public life, human dignity, human rights and freedoms.
The preconditions for the emergence and further development of the group of somatic human rights, in particular, scientific and technological progress, the intercomplementarity of scientific research, changes in social psychology and the correction of moral and ethical norms are highlighted.
The author has proved that the subject of the legal requirement of somatic rights is the corporeality of person, which relates to the personal characteristics of the individual and can cover not only the existing essence, but also hypothetical changes due to modernization, improvement, modification of their corporeality. Somatic rights are positioned as a group of new fourth-generation rights related to the human corporeality and consist in the possibility of realizing the autonomous will of person in relation to his/her whole body, a certain organ/organs or tissues and biological components that are already separated from the body, as well as opportunities for modification, improvement, change of their body.
The signs of somatic rights are singled out and it is proved that in the modern doctrine of constitutionalism the formation of a group of somatic rights can be traced, that does not yet have a clear scientifically formed structure. This is due, in particular, to the progress of technical capabilities in the field of human corporeality. So the author's position on the structure of the group of somatic rights is presented and the following are singled out: the right to one's own genome; reproductive human rights; sexual human rights; the right to transplant organs, tissues, cells; the right to gender identity; the human right to modify one's body; the right to a painless death; the right to dispose of one's body and its parts after death; the right to use drugs and psychotropic substances to alleviate suffering.
The work contains an expanded classification of somatic human rights: by time; according to the peculiarities of implementation; on the subject of implementation; by public approval; for the purpose of implementation; by regulatory recognition.
The study substantiates the somatic right of a person to his/her own genome, which provides the right of personal disposal of the primary, unique feature of human corporeality – a genome that carries personal and genetic information of a person in accordance with established international standards and covers the following regulations: priority of personal integrity; respect for human dignity; prohibition of eugenic practices; respect for genetic diversity; prohibition of genome editing, which aims to modify the germ line; prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of genetic characteristics; access to personal genetic information; confidentiality of genetic information;
The author singles out a group of somatic rights related to a person's sexual identity: the right to sexual health; the right to sexual life, which provides for the possibility of individual choice of sexual life, its presence or absence; the right to protection from sexual exploitation, violence and corruption; the right to protection against injuries of the genitals, which are carried out on non-medical indicators; the right to non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation; access to information and education on sexuality and sexual health.
The dissertation examines the human right to modify one's body, which is positioned as a somatic right to external identity and consists in the ability of a person to change his/her anatomy or phenotype regardless of the motivating factors that guide him/her in making such a decision.
