U.N. Panel Targets U.S. Drive for Broad Cloning Ban
By REUTERS
November 6, 2003
Filed at 0:38 a.m. ET
nytimes.com
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A U.N. committee was poised on Thursday to derail for two years a U.S.-led drive for a broad global ban on all forms of human cloning, including medical research on stem cells, diplomats said.
A motion to defer drafting of the treaty until 2005, to be put forward by Iran on behalf of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference, appeared to be gathering steam in the U.N. General Assembly's legal committee, diplomats on both sides of the battle said.
A defeat would be a setback for Washington, U.S. anti-abortion groups and many heavily Catholic nations, and a victory for countries active in the medical and pharmaceutical fields and scientists who see promise in stem cell research.
``There's a good chance this motion will be adopted, although it is not a sure thing,'' said one envoy, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The matter has been pending in the 191-nation assembly since 2001, when France and Germany asked the United Nations to quickly draft a treaty banning human cloning.
The United States promptly jumped in to rule out a treaty that failed to ban ``therapeutic'' or ``experimental'' cloning, in which human cells are cloned for medical research aims, as well as the cloning of a human being.
Two years later, the U.N. body remains deeply divided on the issue, and not a word has been put on paper.
A group of more than 50 countries, led by Costa Rica and the United States, has continued to insist on the broad ban, while a smaller group -- led by Belgium and including Japan, Brazil and South Africa and several other European governments -- is still pushing for the narrower ban exempting therapeutic cloning.
The latter group -- which also includes Britain, the United States' closest ally on most other international issues -- argues the top U.N. priority should be to quickly ban cloning humans, leaving it to individual governments to decide whether -- and if so, how -- to regulate therapeutic cloning.
As part of a fierce lobbying campaign on both sides, anti-abortion activists have distributed photos of fetuses and pamphlets on genetic engineering to back their appeals for a total ban, while scientific groups have flooded U.N. missions with e-mails and petitions in favor of a narrower treaty.
Philippines Ambassador Lauro Baja, who chairs the assembly's legal committee, has tried repeatedly to bring the two sides together in a compromise that would allow the legal committee to begin the drafting process without explicit instructions on the outcome of their work.
But the two sides have refused to bend, clearing the way for the motion to defer to prevail, diplomats said.
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