Putting aside the concerns about potential backfire effects of unilateral action[1], calling the release of gene drive mosquitoes “illegal” is unsubstantiated. The claim that actually cashes out to is “every single country where Anopheles gambiae are a substantial vector for the spread of malaria has laws that narrowly prohibit the release of release of mosquitoes”. The alternative interpretation, that “every single country will stretch obviously unrelated laws as far as necessary to throw the book at you if you do this”, may be true, but isn’t very interesting, since that can be used as a fully general argument against doing anything ever.[2]
Though you’re more likely to have the book thrown at you for some things than for others, and it’d be silly to deny that we have non-zero information about what those things are in advance. I still think the distinction is substantial.
Putting aside the concerns about potential backfire effects of unilateral action[1], calling the release of gene drive mosquitoes “illegal” is unsubstantiated. The claim that actually cashes out to is “every single country where Anopheles gambiae are a substantial vector for the spread of malaria has laws that narrowly prohibit the release of release of mosquitoes”. The alternative interpretation, that “every single country will stretch obviously unrelated laws as far as necessary to throw the book at you if you do this”, may be true, but isn’t very interesting, since that can be used as a fully general argument against doing anything ever.[2]
Which I’m inclined to agree with, though notably I haven’t actually seen a cost/benefit analysis from any of those sources.
Though you’re more likely to have the book thrown at you for some things than for others, and it’d be silly to deny that we have non-zero information about what those things are in advance. I still think the distinction is substantial.