UNESCO WANTS HUMAN CLONING BAN

October 30, 1997

PARIS (Sapa-DPA) -- Unesco, the United Nations (UN) body for science and culture, is seeking a worldwide ban on the cloning of people and advocates laying down internationally binding ethical guidelines for research on human genes.

These proposals have been made in a general declaration on the human genome and human rights. This code on science and politics is now before Unesco's general assembly in Paris.

An international bioethics committee has been working on these rules since 1992 and 53 government experts from all over the world have come out in favour of the draft.

The approval of the general assembly, which sits until November 12, is the last hurdle to be cleared.

Although the US, the country where gene technology is most advanced, has not been a member of Unesco since its withdrawal in 1984, committee chairman Noelle Lenoir has gained approval for the guidelines from the relevant authorities in Washington.

The draft is a compromise between various interests.

On the one hand gene technology offers to many countries the hope not only of scientific progress but of economic opportunity.

On the other, certain states, such as Germany, want to prevent their own more strict legal framework being watered down by international conventions.

However, the German government does want international agreements.

German Research Minister Juergen Ruettgers said after the birth of the cloned sheep Dolly: "The German government will not and cannot agree to any declaration that does not ban the cloning of human beings."

Article 11 of the draft declaration takes a similar line, saying that practices touching on human dignity, such as the cloning of human beings, should not be allowed.

"This is a text that should retain its validity over the next few years," Lenoir says, noting that the committee had to formulate its guidelines with a view to the future because of rapid developments in science.

Lenoir said two central questions had to be addressed: "How far can one go and where are the boundaries with human rights affected?"

The answer lies in Article 10 of the guidelines: "No research or its applications concerning the human genome, in particular in the fields of biology, genetics and medicine, should prevail over the respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and human dignity of individuals."

Intervention in the human genome is, however, not banned completely, but rather subjected to a strict balancing of its risks and uses.

The boundaries are even more strictly laid down in cases where research is expected to serve the common good, not the health of the affected person.

Whoever suffers injury directly as a result of intervention in his geetic make up is to have the right to restitution, under the guidelines.

Unesco director-general Frederico Mayor expressed confidence that the general assembly would approve the agreement, saying the various interests had been weighed up before sending the draft to the assembly.

"They are all on board," Mayor said.

The guidelines would be the first to have a normative effect on international law in biology and medicine.

The central idea is that the human genome has no influence on the development of the individual personality.

"The draft rejects all forms of discrimination among individuals based on their genetic characteristics and it rules out genetic determinism," Mayor said.

He sees the guidelines as continuing the traditions of the UN, which was initiated with the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights.