Are We Opening Pandora’s Box? Clones, Human Spare Parts and International Law

This article aims to verify whether human cloning is prohibited in international law and, if so, to what extent. In order to answer this question, it seeks to demonstrate that the complexity of the phenomenon and its concrete implications require a series of appropriate distinctions to be made. The article starts with an overview of the different positions adopted by the member states during the debate in the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, which led to the adoption of the UN Declaration on Human Cloning and continues with a focus on the European legal human cloning framework to verify whether it is more precise than the general international one. It demonstrates that reproductive cloning is prohibited both at the global level and in Europe, while therapeutic cloning so far remains within the limits of lawfulness.