During the July council meeting, the Executive Board announced plans to set up a moral ethics committee. Earlier this month, activist groups increased the pressure by publishing an open letter calling to ‘end complicity in genocide’. They also urged UT to carefully assess future collaboration proposals.
SCEMD and ACMD
The Executive Board proposed two bodies, the Strategic Committee on Institutional Collaboration, Ethics and Moral Dilemmas (SCEMD) and the Advisory Committee Moral Dilemmas (ACMD). The first would draft an ethical assessment framework that the second could then use to evaluate collaboration requests and issue recommendations.
Concerns
Although the council welcomes the initiative, it sees several issues in the proposed structure. First, it argues that the distinction between morality and ethics is insufficiently defined. In the council’s view, both committees should include experts in international law, human rights, and conflict situations who can take on the majority of the workload, preventing the Executive Board from being flooded with individual cases. The Board agreed with that point.
Anonymity or loss of expertise
The council also asked who will decide who sits on the committees and which criteria apply. According to the current proposal, the members of the advisory committee would remain anonymous, to prevent outside influence or pressure from activist groups.
The council, however, considers anonymity untransparent and unreliable, because neutrality cannot be guaranteed. It prefers that the names be made public. Executive Board president Vinod Subramaniam did not commit to that. ‘The reality is that some will only participate if anonymity is guaranteed.’ Without it, valuable expertise might be lost, undermining the committees’ legitimacy. Subramaniam suggested publishing members’ areas of expertise at least. The council found that insufficient.
Optional advice
The council also objected to the idea that the committees themselves would decide what is or is not confidential. At the same time, it argued that the proposed working method is too noncommittal, since recommendations would have no binding consequences. The Executive Board could still choose to disregard them. This point was not addressed during the meeting.
termination clause
The council further wants every future collaboration proposal to include a termination clause, enabling the UT to withdraw if research results are later used for morally problematic activities. The Executive Board plans to seek legal advice to determine whether such a clause is permissible.
Subramaniam proposed approving the committees for now, asking prospective members whether their names may be disclosed, and adjusting procedures later where needed. The council agreed under the condition that the outstanding ambiguities will be resolved.
