[Ethics and rights in biomedical research: documents by the Council of Europe and UNESCO]

After having indicated, in brief, the international documents of major interest for the safeguard of the human being subject to biomedical experiment, the author dwells upon two recent initiatives: "Convention for the safeguard of the human rights and the dignity of the human being with regard to the applications of biology and medicine: agreement on humans rights and biomedicine" by the Council of Europe and "Draft of declaration on human genome" issued by UNESCO. Of both documents he explains the genesis and the main objectives that are aimed to be reached. In particular, he dwells upon the contents of those articles that concern scientific research. Finally, he positively evaluates the promotional effort of the human being rights that the two initiatives pursue, highlighting however that there are some limits under a strictly bioethical profile.