Imagining Future People in Biomedical Law

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.