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21 Sydney L. Rev. 202 (1999)
Human Cloning and International Human Rights Law

handle is hein.journals/sydney21 and id is 212 raw text is: Human Cloning and International Human Rights Law DEAN BELL* In a society that came to view its members as just so many cells or molecules to be manufactured or rearranged at will, one wonders how easy it would be to recall what all the shouting about human rights was supposed to mean.' 1. Introduction On the 27th of February 1997, the world was introduced to Dolly the sheep - the first animal in history to be cloned from an adult mammal. Immediately, there was conjecture about the application of the technology to humans. Could the technology be applied in the context of human reproduction? If so, what were its implications, and should anything be done to control or prevent it? That cloning had been prohibited in many countries before Dolly2 suggests that the breakthrough was not entirely unexpected. Indeed, at both national and international levels, advances in genetics and biomedical technologies have presented lawmakers with very difficult ethical and legal problems. The Human Genome Project, the systematic mapping of the human genome being carried out in many countries around the world, has the capacity to transform the role of genetic information in diagnosis and treatment of disease. Combined with the new reproductive technologies, especially in vitro fertilisation, genetic diagnosis of embryos and the possibilities of genetic manipulation of embryos arising from current research, the new genetics has the potential to affect not only the current but future generations in profound ways. These developments, and in particular their potential to violate fundamental human rights and freedoms, have not gone unnoticed by lawmakers.3 This article focuses on the debates about the human rights implications of human cloning as a particularly problematic development BA (Hons), LLB (Hons), doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Law, University of Sydney. This article has benefited from the comments and criticism of a number of people, including Belinda Bennett, Isabel Karpin, Roger Magnusson, George Oppel, Colin Perrin, Jeremy Webber, Shelley Wright, and Tracey Young. Any errors or inaccuracies in the text remain, of course, my own. I Tribe LH, 'Technology Assessment and the Fourth Discontinuity: The Limits of Instrumental Rationality' (1973) 46 Southern Cal LR 617 at 648-9. 2 See nn26-35 and accompanying text. 3 See Murphy TF & Lappd M (eds), Justice and the Human Genome Project (1994); Annas G, 'Mapping the Human Genome and the Meaning of Monster Mythology' (1990) 39 Emory LJ 629; Frankel M & Teich A (eds), The Genetic Frontier - Ethics, Law and Policy (1994); Kevles D & Hood L (eds), The Code of Codes: Scientific and Social Issues in the Human Genome Project (1992); Wertz DC, 'Society and the Not-So-New Genetics: What Are We Afraid Of? Some Future Predictions From a Social Scientist' (1997) 13 JofContemp Health L andPo1299; and lies AT, 'The Human Genome Project: A Challenge to the Human Rights Framework' (1996) 9 Harvard Human Rights J at 27.

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