Tangwa at a glance

Acting Credits


  • potentminibanner

Conception & Design


  • Jimbi Media

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Jimbi Media Sites

  • AFRICAphonie
    AFRICAphonie is a Pan African Association which operates on the premise that AFRICA can only be what AFRICANS and their friends want AFRICA to be.
  • Bakwerirama
    Spotlight on Bakweri Society and Culture. The Bakweri are an indigenous African nation.
  • Bate Besong
    Bate Besong, award-winning firebrand poet and playwright.
  • Bernard Fonlon
    Dr Bernard Fonlon was an extraordinary figure who left a large footprint in Cameroonian intellectual, social and political life.
  • Fonlon-Nichols Award
    Website of the Literary Award established to honor the memory of BERNARD FONLON, the great Cameroonian teacher, writer, poet, and philosopher, who passionately defended human rights in an often oppressive political atmosphere.
  • France Watcher
    Purpose of this advocacy site: To aggregate all available information about French terror, exploitation and manipulation of Africa
  • George Ngwane: Public Intellectual
    George Ngwane is a prominent author, activist and intellectual.
  • Jacob Nguni
    Virtuoso guitarist, writer and humorist. Former lead guitarist of Rocafil, led by Prince Nico Mbarga.
  • Martin Jumbam
    The refreshingly, unique, incisive and generally hilarous writings about the foibles of African society and politics by former Cameroon Life Magazine columnist Martin Jumbam.
  • Nowa Omoigui
    Professor of Medicine and interventional cardiologist, Nowa Omoigui is also one of the foremost experts and scholars on the history of the Nigerian Military and the Nigerian Civil War. This site contains many of his writings and comments on military subjects and history.
  • PostNewsLine
    PostNewsLine is an interactive feature of 'The Post', an important newspaper published out of Buea, Cameroons.
  • Postwatch Magazine
    A UMI (United Media Incorporated) publication. Specializing in well researched investigative reports, it focuses on the Cameroonian scene, particular issues of interest to the former British Southern Cameroons.
  • Simon Mol
    Cameroonian poet, writer, journalist and Human Rights activist living in Warsaw, Poland
  • Victor Mbarika ICT Weblog
    Victor Wacham Agwe Mbarika is one of Africa's foremost experts on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Dr. Mbarika's research interests are in the areas of information infrastructure diffusion in developing countries and multimedia learning.
  • Tunduzi
    A West African in Arusha at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on the angst, contradictions and rewards of that process.
  • Dr Godfrey Tangwa (Gobata)
  • Francis Nyamnjoh
    Prolific writer, social and political commentator, he was a professor at University of Buea and University of Botswana. Currently he is Head of Publications and Dissemination at CODESRIA in Dakar, Senegal. His writings are socially relevant and engaging even to the non specialist.
  • Ilongo Sphere: Writer and Poet

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« Godfrey Tangwa: A Select Bibliography | Main | CERAC? HOW CAN CAMEROONIANS BE FRIENDS OF CAMEROON?? »

Between universalism and relativism:

A  conceptual exploration of problems in formulating and applying international biomedical ethical guidelines

By G B Tangwa

J Med Ethics 2004;30:63–67. doi: 10.1136/jme.2003.003194
Medicalsupplies167_1In this paper, the author attempts to explore some of the problems connected with the formulation and application of international biomedical ethical guidelines, with particular reference to Africa. Recent attempts at revising and updating some international medical ethical guidelines have been bedevilled by intractable controversies and wrangling regarding both the content and formulation. From the vantage position of relative familiarity with both African and Western contexts, and the privilege of having been involved in the revision and updating of one of the international ethical guidelines, the author reflects broadly on these issues and attempts prescribing an approach from both the theoretical and practical angles liable to mitigate, if not completely eliminate, some of the problems and difficulties.

Problems that arise with the formulation of
biomedical ethical guidelines are mainly
conceptual and theoretical, whereas those
that arise with application of such guidelines are
mainly practical and procedural. At the first
level, there is the need to capture clearly in
concepts and language an ethical imperative and,
at the second level, there is the need to translate
an ethical rule or recommendation into concrete
action within a specific time and place.
To say that it is morally right or wrong to do or
refrain from doing something is to imply that it
is so under all other similar circumstances,
irrespective of place, time, and sociocultural
context. Moral norms/rules may, of course, be
expressed in, mixed with, or reflected in laws,
societal customs, cultural practices, taboos, etiquette,
and so on. But all these differ from moral
norms/rules proper in that they are—by their
very nature and raison d’etre—context bound. A
law, for instance, has no jurisdiction and no
applicability outside of its area of sovereignty.

Download jme_article.pdf

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