Law Governing Cross-Border Disputes in Prosthetic Dentistry
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52609/jmlph.v6i1.238Keywords:
Consumer Protection, International Law, Internationality, Jurisprudence, Legislation as Topic, Medical Liability, Patient Rights, Patient Safety, ProsthodonticsAbstract
Medical tourism, including in the fields of prosthetic and maxillofacial dentistry, is a rapidly developing segment of the global healthcare industry. With the development of new technologies, such as 3D printing and dental implants, increasing numbers of patients are traveling abroad for dental treatment. This study demonstrates the complex legal consequences of medical errors in prosthetic dental treatment and clarifies the subtleties of professional fault according to the principles of law, and highlights the dual ergonomic and aesthetic aspects of prosthetic dentistry that differentiate it from direct therapeutic interventions and complicate both demonstration of harm and attribution of responsibility. It addresses the principles of private international law governing conflicts of law, and clarifies how the applicable law is determined when dentist and patient are from different countries, or when treatment has occurred abroad. It also provides a comparison of international regulations and legislation protecting patient rights, such the Oviedo Convention and the World Health Organization Declaration, and exposes the lack, in national laws, of any specific rules governing dental medical liability. The study concludes by stressing the need to increase dentists' understanding of the law, create new ways, such as mediation and arbitration, to settle disputes, and create a unified, global legal framework for medical responsibility in prosthetic dentistry.
References
Zinman E. Dental and legal considerations in periodontal therapy. Periodontol 2000. 2001;25(1):114-30.
Helble M. The movement of patients across borders: challenges and opportuni-ties for public health. Bull World Health Organ. 2011;89:68-72.
Pițuru S, Vlădăreanu S, Păun S, Nanu A. Malpractice and professional liability of medical personnel. Farmacia. 2015;63(2):318-24.
Shaver KG. The attribution of blame: cau-sality, responsibility, and blameworthiness. New York: Springer; 2012.
Kennedy I. Principles of medical law. Ox-ford: Oxford University Press; 2010.
Dawood A. Patient expectations in implant and aesthetic dentistry. Br Dent J. 2025;238(10):770-6.
Bunyan SF, Shakir SM, Zardawi FMM. Color stability and roughness of ocular prosthesis between heat‐cured acrylic and 3D printed acrylic after artificial weather-ing. Int J Dent. 2025;2025(1):6674943.
Corte-Real A, Caetano C, Alves S, Pereira AD, Rocha S, Vieira DN. Patient safety in dental practice: lessons to learn about the risks and limits of professional liability. Int Dent J. 2021;71(5):378-83.
Graskemper JP. Professional responsibility in dentistry: a practical guide to law and ethics. Hoboken (NJ): NWiley; 2023.
Pallocci M, Treglia M, Passalacqua P, Tit-tarelli R, Zanovello C, De Luca L, et al. Informed consent: legal obligation or cor-nerstone of the care relationship? Int J En-viron Res Public Health. 2023;20(3):2118.
Kurihara C, Inoue K, Kai H, Suzuki K, Saeki H, Funabashi Y, et al. Our “WMA Declaration of Helsinki”: opinions and proposals from patient and public for re-search ethics. In: Ethical innovation for global health. Singapore: Springer; 2023. p. 243-69.
Vansweevelt T. Informed consent in Bel-gium and France. In: Informed consent and health. Cheltenham (UK): Edward Elgar Publishing; 2020. p.124-43.
Hamasaki T, Hagihara A. Dentists’ legal li-ability and duty of explanation in dental malpractice litigation in Japan. Int Dent J. 2021;71(4):300-8.
Heimer CA. Responsibility in health care: spanning the boundary between law and medicine. Wake For L Rev. 2006;41:465.
Soleimani AM, Hakim M, Khazaei S. A comparative study of the civil responsibil-ity of the doctor in the legal system of Iran and Egypt. Sociol Cult Stud. 2025;16(1).
King J, Bridgman A, Seward M, Singh A, Gibbons DE, Waldron G, et al. In: Lamb-den P, editor. Dental law and ethics. Ox-ford: Radcliffe Med Press; 2002.
Dhawan R, Dhawan S. Legal aspects in dentistry. J Indian Soc Periodontol. 2010;14(1):81-4.
Mazevet M, Tubert-Jeannin S, Doméjean S. Inadequacies between evidence-based dentistry, health policies, public funding and clinical practice: the case of cariology in a French context. Fr J Dent Med. 2020:1-8.
Bunyan SF, Suhaimi FM, Zardawi FM, Noor SNFM, Zabidi MA. Nanoparticles in enhancing mechanical properties of silicone for maxillofacial rehabilitation – a review. J Evol Med Dent Sci. 2023:280-5.
Montagna F, Manfredini D, Nuzzolese E. Professional liability and structure of litiga-tion in dentistry. Minerva Stomatol. 2008:354-7.
Amaral JM, Caldas IM. Professional liabil-ity and litigation in dental medicine: an analysis of the Portuguese context. J Fo-rensic Odonto-stomatol. 2025;42(3):53.
Franjić S. Damage in dentistry. J Health Care Res. 2021;2(3):146.
Rovida TAS, Dias IDA, Garbin CAS, Garbin AJI. Evaluation of injury cases for dental intervention described in legal den-tistry reports. Int J Odontostomat. 2015;9(3):533-9.
Pinchi V. International overview on dental damage compensation. In: Personal injury and damage ascertainment under civil law: State-of-the-art international guidelines. 2016. p.507-21.
Svempe L. Exploring impediments im-posed by the Medical Device Regulation EU 2017/745 on software as a medical de-vice. JMIR Med Inform. 2024;12(1):e58080.
Kassim PNJ. Medicine beyond borders: the legal and ethical challenges. Med Law. 2009;28:439.
Cortez N. Recalibrating the legal risks of cross-border health care. Yale J Health Pol-icy Law Ethics. 2010;10:1.
Violato C. Doctor-patient relationships, laws, clinical guidelines, best practices, ev-idence-based medicine, medical errors and patient safety. Can Med Educ J. 2013;4(1):e1.
Sirena P. The concepts of “harm” in the French and Italian laws of civil liability. In: French civil liability in comparative per-spective. Oxford: Hart Publ; 2019. p.205-21.
Quinn P, De Hert P. The Patients’ Rights Directive (2011/24/EU) – providing (some) rights to EU residents seeking healthcare in other Member States. Comput Law Secur Rev. 2011;27(5):497-502.
European Union. Directive 2011/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Coun-cil on the application of patients’ rights in cross-border healthcare. Off J Eur Union. 2011 Apr 4;L88. Available from: http://eurlex. europa. eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ. do.
Kramer XE. The Rome II Regulation on the law applicable to non-contractual obli-gations: the European private international law tradition continued—introductory ob-servations, scope, system, and general rules. Ned Int Privaatrecht (NIPR). 2008;(4):414-424.
Beaumont P, Walker L. Recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters in the Brussels I Re-cast and some lessons from it and the re-cent Hague Conventions for the Hague Judgments Project. Journal of Private In-ternational Law. 2015;11(1):31-63.
European Parliament and Council of the European Union. Directive 2006/123/EC on services in the internal market. Off J Eur Union. 2006 Dec 27;L376.
Tsagka SM. (2022). The Professional Qualifications Directive. An, as yet, incom-plete attempt to fully operationalize the principle of mutual recognition (Doctoral dissertation, University of Surrey).
Ancy RJ, Shenoy RP, Jodalli PS, Pasha IM. Benefits of medical and dental tour-ism – a review. J Dent Med Sci. 2020;19(3):26-31.
Cohen IG. Patients with passports: medical tourism, law and ethics. Oxford: Oxford Univ Press; 2015.
Lunt N. Medical tourism: treatments, mar-kets and health system implications: a scoping review, OECD Health Working Papers. 2011.
Kopelman LM. The best interests standard for incompetent or incapacitated persons of all ages. J Law Med Ethics. 2007;35(1):187-96.
Kuzmenkov VA. Medical arbitration tri-bunal: current state and prospects. Sociol Med. 2024;23(2):204-13.
Raposo VL. I (won’t) see you in court: al-ternative dispute resolution for medical li-ability conflicts: examples from Europe. Eur Rev Priv Law. 2020;28(6).
Duguet AM. Medical law in France. Ency-clopedia of Global Bioethics. Cham: Springer Nature. 2023.
Alnakhi WK, Segal JB, Frick KD, Hussin A, Ahmed S, Morlock L. Treatment desti-nations and visit frequencies for patients seeking medical treatment overseas from the UAE: results from Dubai Health Au-thority reporting during 2009–2016. Trop Dis Travel Med Vaccines. 2019;5:1-10.
Jafar MH. Iraqi Civil Code No.(40) of 1951 in light of the foundations on which it is based (a comparative study). J Misan Comp Legal Stud. 2022;1(7).
Marsden J. Keeping patients safe: a practi-cal guide. Community Eye Health. 2015;28(90):23.
World Health Organization. Global patient safety action plan 2021-2030: towards eliminating avoidable harm in health care. Geneva: WHO; 2021.
Ten Have H, Patrão Neves MDC. Oviedo Convention (See also Council of Europe). In: Dictionary of global bioethics. Cham: Springer; 2021. p.49.
Ahonen H, Pakpour A, Norderyd O, Broström A, Fransson EI, Lindmark U. Applying world dental federation theoreti-cal framework for oral health in a general population. Int Dent J. 2022;72(4):536-44.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Shahad Fadhil Bunyan, Attia Suleiman Khalifa
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) is a flexible and commonly used license that allows others to share, remix, adapt, and build upon the work even for commercial purposes, as long as they follow the requirements outlined by the license.
