Two Minutes To Midnight – What International Law can do about Genome Editing

With its ability to transform the ecosystem, gene drives, a powerful genome-editing technology, poses nuanced regulatory challenges. In particular, as gene drives can override the normal rule of inheritance, where the impacts of gene-drive modified organisms on the environment could be irreversible, leading to a
permanent population change. Moreover, as these gene-drive modified organisms are designed to spread to large populations, they can also penetrate national and geographic borders, with global implications. Insofar as gene drive applications could be both potentially beneficial as well as hazardous to the world, this
article seeks to explore ways in which international law could provide a useful platform to engage the relevant stakeholders in general, and encourage responsible science in specific.