UN Colonial Mortal Dictata

This article is about a legislation. For the novel, see Halo: Mortal Dictata.

The UN Colonial Mortal Dictata, also known as the Mortal Dictata Act, is a human piece of legislation or code of ethics. It is based on the UN Genetic Rights Act which was extended to the colonies in 2165 to regulate the activities of offworld gene tech corporations. Dr. Catherine Halsey is known to have violated the code on several occasions, most notably when flash cloning herself in order to create Cortana.

The Mortal Dictata Act

Section 1A/3 - Introduction and Overview

1A/3a: A human being shall be defined as a person recognized and accepted by a reasonable layperson as being human on the basis of form, behavior, or external appearance, and no authority shall be permitted to use any element of a genetic profile to exclude a person from that definition.

1A/3b: A human being shall not be restricted, selected, or subjected to discrimination on the basis of their genome or genetic profile, whether altered or unaltered.

1A/3c: A human being shall not be brought into existence with the intent of providing biological material or research data for the use, treatment, or benefit of another.

1A/3d: A human being shall not be subject to any commercial claim, patent, or restriction on the basis of any part of the genome or genetic profile, whether altered or unaltered.

1A/3e: A human being, regardless of any engineering of their genome or introduction of non-human or artificial DNA, shall not cease to be classed as human under any circumstances.

1A/3f: No human being shall be subjected to genetic alteration except with their express and informed consent, or, in the case of a person under the age of 18, with the consent of their legal guardian for the sole purpose of correcting a health defect in that child.

1A/3g: A human being or part of thereof may not be owned by any individual or organization.

1A/3h: A human being shall not be cloned.