Aggregated News
Talks at the United Nations appear to have failed to avert a new U.N. confrontation over a U.S.-led drive to ban all cloning of human embryos including for stem cell research, diplomats said on Thursday.
As a result a General Assembly panel is headed for a close vote next week on a plan for an anti-cloning treaty put forward by the United States and Costa Rica.
But with support for the plan seen fading in the assembly's treaty-writing Legal Committee, a last-minute compromise could yet be reached to avert an up-or-down vote, the envoys said.
A group of countries led by Belgium opposes the plan for a U.N. treaty so broad that it would ban cloning human embryos for stem cell or similar research -- known as "therapeutic cloning" -- as well as the cloning of human beings.
That group has suggested the committee adopt instead a declaration of principle leaving policy decisions on research cloning to individual governments.
But three weeks of negotiations, which began before the Nov. 2 U.S. elections in which stem cell research was a major...
As a result a General Assembly panel is headed for a close vote next week on a plan for an anti-cloning treaty put forward by the United States and Costa Rica.
But with support for the plan seen fading in the assembly's treaty-writing Legal Committee, a last-minute compromise could yet be reached to avert an up-or-down vote, the envoys said.
A group of countries led by Belgium opposes the plan for a U.N. treaty so broad that it would ban cloning human embryos for stem cell or similar research -- known as "therapeutic cloning" -- as well as the cloning of human beings.
That group has suggested the committee adopt instead a declaration of principle leaving policy decisions on research cloning to individual governments.
But three weeks of negotiations, which began before the Nov. 2 U.S. elections in which stem cell research was a major...
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