United Nations postpones world cloning ban

The General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) has narrowly voted to postpone any decision on a global human cloning ban until 2005. Eighty countries voted in favour of the delay, with 79 voting against and 15 abstaining. This meant that delegates did not vote on two other competing cloning resolutions. One, sponsored by Costa Rica and supported by the United States and approximately 60 other UN member states, sought a total ban on human cloning. The Bush administration has campaigned hard for a UN ban, despite having been unable to pass similar domestic legislation.

It became clear, however, that the Costa Rican resolution was not wholeheartedly supported by all nations, when divisions appeared in a meeting of a working group of thge General Assembly earlier this month. Twenty-three nations, including Japan, China, Brazil, France, Germany, Belgium and the UK, supported a different version of the resolution, which proposed a ban on cloning for reproductive purposes only, to enable cloning for research purposes to continue. They say that such 'therapeutic' cloning research holds 'enormous promise' and that the issue should be left to individual governments to decide. Many of these individual nations, including the UK, have already passed national laws banning cloning for reproductive purposes but allowing cloning for research.

Last week, a third competing proposal was put forward by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which has 57 member countries. The resolution, passed by the UN last Thursday, said that the debate on cloning should be postponed for two years. In the absence of UN guidelines, individual countries can continue to regulate human cloning as they wish. 'We are very pleased that the United Nations has decided not to press ahead with a ban' said the UK's Department of Health in statement. 'We believe that therapeutic cloning research offers enormous potential to develop cures for serious diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and heart disease, which affect many millions of people and are currently incurable,' it said.