Washington

The United States and its European allies are once again on a collision course over an international agreement. This time, the bone of contention is a proposed global ban on human cloning, under consideration at the United Nations (UN).

The UN committee began deliberating the proposal last week. But on the first day of the talks, the American delegation said that any anti-cloning agreement should also ban the 'therapeutic' cloning to form human embryos for research purposes.

China, Japan and some European nations already permit such research, and their representatives will argue that the US position would prevent scientists from carrying out potentially beneficial work.

The UN set up the Ad Hoc Committee on an International Convention Against the Reproductive Cloning of Human Beings in December in response to a request made last August by France and Germany for a ban on human reproductive cloning.

After the meeting, committee chair Peter Tomka of Slovakia said that the group did not reach a consensus and would meet again in September. Shortly after that meeting, the UN's General Assembly is expected to decide whether to pass a resolution against cloning.

The US delegation's declaration, which states that “to ban 'reproductive' cloning effectively, all human cloning must be banned”, reflects the views of the administration of President George Bush. But the United States has no laws against either reproductive or therapeutic cloning.

Observers say that the US position is unlikely to win the support of the UN. But it could serve to deadlock the process and prevent the reproductive cloning ban from going ahead.

“This could be a Kyoto of the embryos,” says Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, who advised the Clinton administration on bioethics and is working with the UN ad hoc committee. The United States “is out of step with the world's position”, he says.