FREE, PRIOR & INFORMED CONSENT

Background

According to the United Nations (UN), free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) is a;

“… principle protected by international human rights standards that state, ‘all peoples have the right to self-determination’ and – linked to the right to self-determination – ‘all peoples have the right to freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development’.”

We believe the same ethic applies in our everyday engagements, extending into social and civil formalities which require all parties to engage mindfully, without ambiguity and where required to do so in differing forms for authenticity, retractability, responsibility and transparency. This extends upon the core principle of free prior and informed consent that an Indigenous person has as a right and more holistically forms the onus for good practice when engaging with local, national and international First Nation communities.

Elements of a common understanding of free, prior and informed consent are described in the 2010 Social Justice Report released by the Australian Human Rights Commission.

INFORMED CONSENT

Foreground

As differing from FPIC, (yet inextricably related) informed consent is an act of empathy, where the clarity of decision making is a two-way listening process … where agreements are explicitly determined, yet the matter of service and the outcome of the process indeterminable.

Fundamental to the notion of informed consent must be the capacity to accomodate the power to retract from the agreement without penalty - in effect a ‘power of veto’ where there is no obligation other than what has been agreed legally to retain should either party wish to cease services, engagement or any further association.

This is often achieved using four (4) simple parameters;

  1. Conversation - there is nothing more pleasing than finding people in the world that not only agree with our opinion, yet also self deterministic and prepared to disagree or question you in order to achieve a high common good;

  2. Mutual Benefit / Obligation - an informal process progressing to formal process whereby members of an organisation or individuals in negotiation are able to articulate in agreement. The benefit and obligation are interwoven as proof of the agreed parameters and outcomes sought of any given interaction can then be provided to other members or as required by governance in the future;

  3. Retractability - the ‘power of veto’ is a position of great emancipation when applied in the agreement or contractual engagement space, where by one or all parties are able to declare their need to back away from or off from an agreeement using this clause of retraction. This ‘power of veto’ is an act without penalty, provided that the historical representation and integrity of the original sought outcomes are not compromised;

  4. Legibility - To reman legible, as professional ethical beings we must acknowledge that our daily actions (and in-action or reluctance to act) can contribute in major ways which affects the lives of others. Hence, it is with ethical responsibility that our agreements and commensurate development be aligned and co-designed … that communication is ‘crystal clear’. We understand that decision making affects or influences the journey of another, so we cannot simply rely on “take my word on that” as we all know, our memory and our spoken future persuasions are not the truth … it is ethical to provide differing forms of evidence of the decision making process, not a simple handshake and promise in the spirit of conviviality.