Imagining future people in biomedical law: From technological utopias to legal dystopias within the regulation of human genetic modification technologies

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Abstract

Human genetic engineering and other human enhancement technologies bring about uncertainties and risks on both the physical and the conceptual and intangible levels. Much of the controversy surrounding these emerging technologies is due to the fact that categorical distinctions, such as between person and thing, and chance and choice, are blurred in radical ways. As a consequence, the emergence of biomedical technologies also entails, what could be called, metaphysical risks and symbolic uncertainties. This chapter explores the ways in which imaginings of the future of mankind and mankind itself have found their way into international legal regulation of biomedical technologies through an analysis of recent debates on the international ban on human germline genetic engineering. This prohibition, which is at the heart of international biolaw, is currently being questioned as recent scientific breakthroughs in the field of gene-editing are about to turn human genetic engineering into a reality.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationRisk and the regulation of uncertainty in international law
EditorsMonika Ambrus, Rosemary Rayfuse, Wouter Werner
Place of PublicationOxford
PublisherOxford University Press
Chapter7
Pages117-138
Number of pages22
ISBN (Electronic)9780191837074
ISBN (Print)9780198795896
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017

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