Street, Paul --- "Constructing Risks: GMOs, Biosafety and Environmental Decision-Making" [2007] ELECD 116; in Somsen, Han (ed), "The Regulatory Challenge of Biotechnology" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: The Regulatory Challenge of Biotechnology

Editor(s): Somsen, Han

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845424893

Section: Chapter 5

Section Title: Constructing Risks: GMOs, Biosafety and Environmental Decision-Making

Author(s): Street, Paul

Number of pages: 23

Extract:

3. Red lights and rogues: regulating
human genetics
Roger Brownsword*

1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents some reflections on three related matters concerning
the regulation of human genetics. The focal points for these remarks are,
first, the nature of regulation itself; second, the respective influence of pur-
chasers and providers in making a market for the products and services of
the human genetics industry; and, third, the significance of viewing human
genetics less as a regulatory target and more as a regulatory tool. The
prompt for these reflections is what I take to be the standard test-case for
the `regulability' (Lessig 1999) of human genetics, namely the rogue geneti-
cist intent on, say, engaging in human reproductive cloning and willing to
carry out the research and development in whichever jurisdiction permits
or, in practice, ignores such activities.1
The test-case of the rogue geneticist invites the following thoughts: that
the essential regulatory challenge is to put in place effective global prohi-
bitions against the abuse of human genetics; that rogue providers of human
genetic products and services should be our principal regulatory targets;
and that, if we cannot get a regulatory grip on such target rogue geneticists,
our worst nightmare (say, the birth of a cloned child) will become a reality.
The purpose of this chapter is not to suggest that these thoughts are wholly
mistaken so much as to offer some correction for the particular loading that
they reflect ­ that is to say, the loading for regulatory prohibition, ...