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39 New Eng. L. Rev. 489 (2004-2005)
The ABCs of Global Governance of Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Arbitrage, Bioethics and Cloning

handle is hein.journals/newlr39 and id is 499 raw text is: THE ABCs OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE OF EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH: ARBITRAGE, BIOETHICS AND CLONING GEORGE J. ANNAS* Thank you for that introduction, which reminds me that I used to do regulatory work for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, primarily as a member of the Board of Registration in Medicine, and we had real regulations, real law, that could be enforced. What I am going to talk about today is not fake law, but a kind of law that is often seen as more like ethics-international law. There is really no such thing as global bioethics governance, but I would like to think that someday it will be a part of international law. Certainly, if we are going to pursue embryonic stem cell research and human cloning, there should be global governance of it. The birth of Dolly the sheep ushered in an international debate about whether we should clone humans and about whether we needed some form of global bioethics governance. The core bioethics question, of course, is not can we clone humans, but should we clone humans? Not can we do embryonic stem cell research, but should we do embryonic stem cell research? And, if we should, how should we do it? One of the most salient features of science in general is that it is inherently international because if you can do something in the United States, it is likely you can do it in at least a dozen other countries in the world that have similar scientific expertise and scientific facilities. So, it is not surprising that a year after scientists in Massachusetts announced (prematurely) that they had produced the first cloned human embryo, Korean scientists announced that they had in fact created the first stem cell from a cloned human embryo.1 Edward R. Utley Professor and Chair, Department of Health Law, Bioethics and Human Rights, Boston University School of Public Health; Professor, Boston University School of Medicine; Professor, Boston University School of Law; Cofounder, Global Lawyers and Physicians. 1. Woo Suk Hwang et al., Evidence of a Pluripotent Human Embryonic Stem Cell Line Derived from a Cloned Blastocyst, 303 Sci. MAG. 1669 (Mar. 12, 2004); see also Claudia Dreifus, 2 Friends, 242 Eggs and a Breakthrough, N.Y. TIMEs, Feb. 17, 2004,

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