1. The cloning of a sheep and other animals, the possibility of cloning human beings and related research work have recently been the subject of much public attention.

2. The Assembly, in its Opinion No. 202 (1997), has supported the principle that any intervention seeking to create a human being genetically identical to another human being, whether living or dead ("genetically identical human beings" meaning "human beings sharing the same nuclear gene set"), should be prohibited.

3. The Assembly and the European Parliament have also called for an explicit world-wide ban on the cloning of human beings.

4. The Assembly is of the opinion that work likely to lead to the cloning of humans should not be carried out.

5. Consequently, the Assembly asks its Committee on Science and Technology to organise, in close association with parliaments of observer states and in co-operation with the European Parliament and the European Science Foundation, a debate on the attitude of the research community towards research work likely to lead to the cloning of humans and to interventions seeking to clone humans. The aim would be to stimulate initiatives by the research community effectively preventing such research and interventions, in line with the spirit of the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine and its draft additional protocol on the prohibition of cloning human beings.

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1. Assembly debate on 23 September 1997 (26th Sitting) (see Doc. 7895, report of the Committee on Science and Technology, rapporteur: Mr Plattner; and Doc. 7906, opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, rapporteur: Mr Schwimmer).

Text adopted by the Assembly on 23 September 1997 (26th Sitting).