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3 Chi. J. Int'l L. 115 (2002)
Tying Prometheus down: The International Law of Human Genetic Manipulation

handle is hein.journals/cjil3 and id is 121 raw text is: Tying Prometheus Down: The International Law of Human Genetic Manipulation Stephen P. Marks* Le jour est venu que l'homme, se rendant moins d6pendant de la nature, devient l'esclave de ranti-nature, la contre-nature, fruit de la science de la nature. Paul Val6ry' I. INTRODUCTION The growing literature on the bioethics of the human genome has begun to extend into international law. In particular, the field of genetic engineering, which began some thirty years ago, and is rapidly evolving due to the spectacular growth of biotechnology, has been the subject of international law-making. This field is fraught, however, with controversy due to the uncertainty about the risks involved, the deep philosophical implications, and the economic stakes. The focus of this article is the state of international law relating to the potentially harmful technological manipulation of the human genome, primarily through human reproductive cloning and inheritable genetic modification (germline genetic engineering).2 A central concern is with those methods that some fear will threaten human existence as we know it because, in this view, the genome of future generations will undergo unpredictable mutations and thus alter human nature itself. Others see in Franqois-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he is also the Director of the Frangois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights. Professor Marks is a member of the Group of Experts on Human Rights and Biotechnology, convened by the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The author gratefully acknowledges the research assistance ofJean Swieca, Executive Editor, Virginia Environmental Law Journal, University of Virginia School of Law. 1. 'The day has come in which Man, less dependant on nature, becomes slave to anti-nature, against nature, a product of the science of nature. Cited by Maurice Rolland, Le Respect de l'Homme et 'Expfi'inentation Midicale, in I Ren6 Cassin Amicorum Discipulorumque Liber 249 (Pidone 1969). 2. Such efforts are sometimes referred to as species altering technology or human genetic engineering, but such appellations are misleading since numerous widely unobjectionable interventions, such as in vitro fertilization, therapeutic abortion, or even selection of whom to marry and whether to procreate alter the species in the sense that they change the genes that are passed on into the gene pool.

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