President Clinton put a ban on using public money for cloning research, but this new law is only an act of publicity. There already was a law against using federal money for embryo research which made the new law superfluous.

There is an ongoing debate in congress concerning the aspects of a general law against human cloning. This is a very controversial issue because there is a ideological gap between Democrats and Republicans. On the one hand there are the Republicans who are in favour of a strict law banning human cloning, and on the other hand the Democrats don't see the necessity of a new federal decision against it.

No legal expert is able to give a clear definition concerning the act of cloning human beings, because of the sudden innovation in genetic research. The consequence of this fact is that the right of parentage of a cloned baby is not clearly defined.

Germany rejected this cloning legislation; they already had strict rules on embryo research partly due do to the overall German public's backlash against previous eugenics research connected with Hitler.

Britain would not sign either, they currently have their own cloning legislation, and did not agree with the Council of Europe's specifics on cloning research.

Portugal has been preparing a bill put forth by Health Minister Maria de Belem Roseira, but the bill has yet to produce a solid position on cloning.

The Netherlands have essentially banned cloning by stopping clone-related research at the genetic engineering company Pharming. Although the Netherlands allow some genetic and embryo research.

Genetic engineers in South Africa have announced plans to clone humans. Although the South African government has not restricted the procedure yet, some government officials are questioning whether the cloning of humans violates the government's Human Tissue Act.

Source:  Humancloning.org