[JURIST] The UN General Assembly's legal committee [official website] failed to reach a consensus Thursday on a nonbinding declaration that would have urged urge governments to adopt their own laws on human cloning. As a result, the committee is likely to adopt a proposal supported by the United States but opposed by proponents of stem-cell research that would ban therapeutic cloning [American Federation for Aging overview], which involves the harvesting of human embryos. The proposal is a follow-up to a failed 2001 initiative that did not include such a ban. The US, Costa Rica, and other countries have argued this type of research is a taking of human life and urge the UN to oppose any proposal that does not include a ban. Reuters has more.