Troy R. Jensen

About the author: Troy R. Jensen won the 1999 James Baker Hughes Prize, a yearly award given for the best student-written paper on international economic law. The following viewpoint is excerpted from Jensen's winning paper.

Given the worldwide shortage of organs available for transplantation, some countries have adopted presumed consent laws under which doctors have the authority to remove recently deceased patients' organs unless the patient had registered as a non-donor. Brazil instituted such a law in 1998 but abolished the policy in the same year due to public opposition and reports of corruption and human rights violations. Other nations should also avoid presumed consent policies. Such policies are fundamentally at odds with an individual's right to control decisions...