UN drafting global cloning ban

Experts on issues in genetics and biotechnology have met in New York to help United Nations (UN) delegates draft an international treaty that will prohibit human reproductive cloning.

The New York meeting is the first in a series of meetings of a committee set up last November, following requests for a global ban on reproductive cloning from France and Germany. They called for the ban after Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori announced his intention to clone the first human baby. However, the US delegate at the meeting has called for tighter controls, proposing that the cloning of humans should be prohibited for any purpose, despite the fact that this is an issue that has not yet been finalised in the US itself.

The chairman of the UN committee, Peter Tomka of Slovakia, said that 'the possibility of human reproductive cloning poses dire consequences for humanity. The time has come for the international community to consider the feasibility of an international agreement providing a coordinated response to such medical and scientific advances.'

The drafting of the treaty is expected to take years, and all 189 member states of the UN will be free to participate in the deliberations. The first week of meetings was to consider various approaches that could be taken. A second week of negotiations will take place in September.