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CellNEWS
05-03-08

The United Nations General Assembly’s legal committee today resumed debate on two competing draft resolutions that would ban all reproductive cloning.

Both versions under discussion in the Sixth Committee ban all human cloning but differ on language concerning the use of human cells for purposes other than reproduction.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan today said he supported experimental cloning.

"The issue is before the Member States and I think it is an important issue. Obviously it’s an issue for [them] to decide. But as an individual and in my personal view, I think I will go for therapeutic cloning," he said.

In introducing the draft sponsored by Costa Rica, which also forbids the experimental use of embryonic stem cells, representative Roberto Tovar said that the development of biotechnology offered great possibilities, but human cloning for either the purpose of creating identical copies or for scientific experimentation required the utmost caution.

Experimental cloning was unnecessary, as adult stem cells could cure the same diseases as embryonic ones, he said. And allowing experimental cloning would create the conditions for unscrupulous scientists to attempt reproductive cloning.

The resolution he was introducing reaffirmed that human cloning was incompatible with respect for human dignity, Mr. Tovar said, and expressed the Assembly’s intention to promote scientific research in the areas of biology and genetics in a way that respected human rights.

The draft sponsored by Belgium, that country’s representative, Marc Pecsteen de Buytswerve, said, did not exclude the possibility for a country to forbid all forms of human cloning and a future international treaty explicitly foresaw that possibility. The draft was also not a proposal in favour of therapeutic cloning but only acknowledged the differences of opinion on that question.

The text contained a mandate for a convention that would cover reproductive cloning and other forms of human cloning simultaneously so as to meet the wishes of delegations to treat the two questions in the framework of a single instrument, he said. Reproductive cloning would be banned without exception.

As to other forms of cloning, three options were offered: they could be banned, submitted to a moratorium, or regulated through national legislation that submitted research to strict controls to avoid misuse, Mr. Pecsteen said. The nature of those controls could be elaborated in the treaty.

Last year the Committee voted by a slim margin to delay bringing the two drafts to the full Assembly for two years.

L.
Ed.
CellNEWS
04-10-22

L.
Ed.
CellNEWS
04-09-16

L.
Ed.
CellNEWS
03-12-11

L.
Ed.
CellNEWS
03-12-06

UNITED NATIONS — Deeply divided over the question of human cloning, the General Assembly's Legal Committee voted this morning to delay discussion of a treaty banning human cloning for two years. Reflecting the polarized debate, the motion to delay was adopted 80-79, with 15 abstentions.

Iran, acting on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, introduced the motion to remove the item from the UN agenda until the 2005 General Assembly session. The committee is trying to devise a mandate for negotiating a treaty banning cloning. There is unanimity that reproductive cloning — the cloning of a human to produce another human — should be unequivocally prohibited. The crux of the debate has been on therapeutic cloning — cloning embryos for scientific and medical research including stem cell research.

One side, led by the United States and the Vatican, wants a total ban on human cloning, while the other side, led by France and Germany, would permit therapeutic cloning.

The committee had before it two competing draft resolutions reflecting those two sides. Adopting the Iranian motion prevented a vote on either draft.

"I think the desire for delay is evidence of the realization that the countries that are supporting only a partial ban realize that their position is eroding," said US Deputy Ambassador James Cunningham.

He said there were at least 100 countries supporting the US position. If there had been a vote, "it would have been a significant defeat for their position," he added.

The Legal Committee traditionally attempts to take decisions by consensus (Jim Wurst, UN Wire, Nov. 6).

Approximately 23 countries support the French-German position, including Belgium, China, Japan and the United Kingdom. They want to leave the decision of whether to allow cloning for research and medical purposes to individual countries. The United States argues that scientists already have enough stem cell material for research on diseases and that therapeutic cloning is therefore not necessary (Edith Lederer, AP/Yahoo! News, Nov. 6).

The New York Times said in an editorial yesterday that what the Bush administration was pursuing in its resolution on cloning is "a position more extreme than it has been able to sell" in the United States.

General Assembly "member states would be wise to ignore the American campaign and instead chart a course that would allow therapeutic cloning," it said.

"This is no time to snuff out promising medical research by imposing rigid moral restraints that are far from universally accepted," it added (New York Times, Nov. 5).

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Ed.
CellNEWS
03-11-06