In a policy paper published in PLoS Medicine, Loane Skene, Professor of Law at the University of Melbourne, Australia, discusses whether it is ethical for scientists to conduct or benefit from research in another country if that research would be unlawful, or not generally accepted, in their own country. In most cases, she says, it is rare for countries to have laws in place directly preventing their scientists from conducting research abroad, or even bringing back products of such research unless they pose a safety risk. But would it be ethical?

To address this question, the author has devised an "ethico-legal barometer" ("Skene's Barometer") that gauges whether it would be ethical to do research abroad that is banned at home. The needle of the barometer moves through five zones: white, green, yellow, orange, and red. Research that falls in the red zone, such as research to develop chemical weapons in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, may be regarded as unethical and should be banned, says Professor Skene. "If scientists in the home country seem inclined to do "red zone" research in other countries, the home country can enact extraterritorial laws to prevent them doing so.

The paper focuses particularly on human embryonic stem cell research and the full text of the paper is available here.