On March 8, 2005, the General Assembly adopted the United Nations Declaration on Human Cloning in which Member States are called upon to

a) protect adequately human life in the application of life sciences

b) prohibit all forms of human cloning inasmuch as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life

c) prohibit the application of genetic engineering techniques that may be contrary to human dignity

d) prevent the exploitation of women in the application of life sciences

e) adopt and implement national legislation to bring into effect paragraphs a to d

f) take into account the pressing global issues such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, which affect in particular the developing countries. Katrien Devolder acknowledges the stimulus and support of the European project “CLEMIT: Developing an operational ethical framework to analyse and monitor the ethics of creating and redesigning human beings,” sponsored by the European Commission, DG-Research as part of the Science and Society research programme—6th Framework, in the preparation of this paper. The authors are also grateful to Norman Ford and Carolyn Cameron for their helpful comments on an earlier draft and to Konrad Hochedlinger for advice.