The Romanian Legislative Frame of Prevention and Fighting against Genetic Manipulation

• Author: Florentina Pusca
• Position: Danubius University of Galati, Faculty of Law
• Pages: 297-302

The Romanian legislative frame of prevention

and fighting against genetic manipulation

Florentina Pu6c5

Danubius University of Galati, Faculty of Law, florentinapusca@univ-danubius.ro

It is wel l known that the human genome rep resents the common inheritance of the human species which must

be pr otected in order to maintain the integrity of the species. It has a progressive nature and is subjected to

different mutations, wi th serious social and moral effects, reaso n for which genetic manipulation bring s

forward the nec essity for criminal norms interventions to protect the population against such proc edures which

can lead, in some extent, t o mass destruction and becoming a crime agai nst humanity.

In order to be in line with the international legislation, the Romania Legislation ratified the Europea n

Convention protecting hum an rights and the dignity of human beings against the biological and medic al

experiments, The Convention regarding human rights and biomedicine, throughout law n o. 17 (Official

Monitor, Part I, no. 103/28.11.200 1). T he Romanian legislator did not incrimin ate the issues concerning

the alteration o f human genom e and cloning i n a special law and chose the incrimination o f these issues by

the provisions of the Romanian Criminal Code, publis hes in O.M., Part I, no.575/29.06.2004, under the

Law no. 301/ 28.06.2004. Because this crimina l Code was subjected to numerous delays of

implementation , our cou ntry is in a legislative va cuum from this point of view, as th e is sues concerning

the genetic man ipulation are no t covered by a c riminal protectio n of the social values of this fi eld.

Romania ratified the Conv ention on Biolo gical D iversity under th e Law no. 58/1994 and O.U.G.

195/2005, un der the L aw no. 265/2006 co ncerning env ironment pr otection, in which issues on th e import,

activities and commercia l use of the genetically modified organisms have been r egulated in Article 39-44,

chapter VI. Romania is the first country in the Balkans to enact the genetically modifie d organisms

(GMO), under G.O. 49/200 0. The Gov ernment Decree 49/2000 ap proved and modified under the Law

no.214/2000 fi rst regulated “the procureme nt, testing, u sing and m arketing the genetically mod ified

organisms, using modern biotec hnology techniq ues, as well as t heir results”.

The same Decree defined GMO as “be ing an organism co ntaining a new combination of genetic material,

obtained using m odern biotechn ology technique s and has theref ore new charact eristics”.

In the same sense, G MOs (except the hu man ones) are cons idered to be organis ms that have been

modified using other methods besides hybridization and/or natural recom bination, in other words, usi ng

biotechnologies for recombin ing th e DN A in vitro as well as c ellular fusion, in speci al iso lation

conditions, to av oid and limit th e human and en vironmental con tact.

The legislation in this fiel d contains pro visions concer ning: the use of genetically modified

microorganisms , deliberate insertion of the G MOs in the environ ment, in conditions of total safety for the

human beings and the enviro nment protection, the conditions for the importation and e xportation of the

GMOs. In this c ategory GMO m icroorganism, plants and anim als are included .

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