Human rights convention embraces ban on cloning

The first binding international ban on human cloning was signed by 19 European countries yesterday as opinion round the world hardened against the idea of replicating human beings. Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor, reports

The text, which is an addition to the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, slaps a total ban on human cloning although it allows the cloning of cells for research purposes.

Britain did not sign the protocol because it is not yet a signatory to the convention of which it is a part, which was agreed last April during the UK election campaign. The Government is consulting on aspects of the convention before signing it, but a health department spokesman said yesterday that it welcomed the protocol and shared the view that the creation of genetically identical human beings should be banned.

"The principles are already reflected in UK law which prohibits human reproductive cloning," she said.

The 40-member Council of Europe called the protocol "Europe's response to the threat" of human cloning following the experiments that led to the creation of Dolly the sheep, the world's first mammal cloned from an adult cell, by scientists from the Roslin Institute, Edinburgh.

The cloning protocol, agreed to by European leaders at a summit last October, will also not include Germany, which claims the measure is weaker than a current German law that forbids all research on human embryos. That law is a legacy of the Nazis' attempts before and during the Second World War to conduct genetic engineering experiments on humans.

Shortly before the signing ceremony in Paris yesterday, the French President, Jacques Chirac, told a meeting of members of European national ethics committees that "It is on the international level that one must ban cloning and the genetic manipulation susceptible to altering the character of the human species. We would resolve nothing in banning certain practices in one country if the doctors and researchers can develop them elsewhere."

In Britain, a consultation paper setting out the potential benefits of allowing research on human cloning is to be issued in the next few weeks. The Human Genetics Advisory Commission, which has drawn up the document with the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, will seek the views of a wide range of scientific, religious and ethical organisations. The UK government has said it is "not opposed in principle" to allowing research aimed at tackling serious inherited diseases.