For the Director-General of UNESCO, “This news, whether or not it is confirmed, brings home to us the urgent need to do everything possible, at both the national and international levels, to prohibit experiments that are not only scientifically risky but also ethically unacceptable, constituting as they do an intolerable violation of human dignity.

“Faced with such criminal practices which we can only regard with disapproval and dismay, we must boldly press on with the efforts that, in 1997, led to the adoption of the UNESCO Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights, which states in its Article 11 that ‘practices which are contrary to human dignity, such as reproductive cloning of human beings, shall not be permitted’. It is a matter of urgency that agreement be reached on a binding instrument of universal scope that prohibits and punishes any attempt at reproductive human cloning.

“There can be no progress for humanity in a world where science and technology develop independently of all ethical imperatives. I therefore solemnly request political leaders in every country and the international scientific, intellectual and juridical community to cooperate in taking all appropriate measures, at the national and international levels, to respond as swiftly as possible to these challenges, which are a threat to the irreplaceable uniqueness of the human being”.

Versión en español del comunicado