Genetic technologies and courts of law

Human genetic testing, and its next logical technological plateau, gene therapy, are largely unregulated in the United States and much of the world. Since the basic science and some of the technological know-how related to such tests and therapeutic regimes cross national boundaries, the disputes that follow in the wake of popular response to such technological advances could arise in virtually any court of the world. For much of the post-industrial world, this pits the unfettered processes of medical decision-making against standards of the rule of law enforced by independent courts of law. For a substantial portion of the developing world, courts are not independent and the rule of law is precariously standardized. There the proponents of unbounded genetic test development and experimentation have greatest opportunities for mischief that can create civil, criminal and military strife. In this paper we propose and discuss methods to forecast case scenarios. We will emphasize the globalization of civil and criminal conflicts that may be spurred by the use of genetic testing. Extra-judicial dispute resolution is likely to fail in the case of genetic tests. We finally propose an international means of judicial discourse that has potential to bring objectivity and even-handedness to the just resolution of issues spurred by genetic testing and engineered evolution.