The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Opened for signature at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and entering into force in December 1993, the Convention on Biological Diversity is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and the equitable sharing of the benefits from utilization of genetic resources. With 193 Parties, the Convention has near universal participation among countries committed to preserving life on Earth. The Convention seeks to address all threats to biodiversity and ecosystem services, including threats from climate change, through scientific assessments, the development of tools, incentives and processes, the transfer of technologies and good practices and the full and active involvement of relevant stakeholders including indigenous and local communities, youth, NGOs, women and the business community. The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety a supplementary treaty to the Convention seeks to protect biological diversity from the potential risks posed by living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology. To date, 156 countries and the European Community are party to the Protocol. The Secretariat of the Convention and its Cartagena Protocol is located in Montreal. www.cbd.int/

Access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of their utilization. The Convention on Biological Diversity recognizes the sovereign rights of States over their natural resources in areas within their jurisdiction. Parties to the Convention therefore have the authority to determine access to genetic resources in areas within their jurisdiction. Parties also have the obligation to take appropriate measures with the aim of sharing the benefits derived from their use. Genetic resources, whether from plants, animals or micro-organisms, may be used for different purposes. Users of genetic resources can include research institutes, universities and private companies operating in various sectors such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, agriculture, horticulture and biotechnology. Benefits derived from genetic resources may include the result of research and development carried out on genetic resources, the transfer of technologies which make use of those resources, participation in biotechnological research activities, or monetary benefits arising from the commercialization of products based on genetic resources. www.cbd.int/abs

Excerpted from: Chee Yoke Ling, "Rocky Road Still Ahead for ABS Protocol,"SUNS, March 31, 2010.

Governments at a meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted a document containing the text of a draft protocol on access and benefit sharing (ABS) on 28 March but actual negotiations on this new treaty will not take place until a few months after.

Although almost all the 193 Parties to the CBD have agreed to a single legally binding treaty, there remains deep division over the content, primarily, the balance of obligations between users and providers of biological resources. The rights of indigenous peoples and local communities are also a contentious issue.

The Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Access and Benefit Sharing set up under the CBD was mandated to finalize the text of the treaty at its 9th meeting (22-28 March) in Cali, Colombia so that it could be adopted formally at the biennial meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the CBD in October in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan.

The impetus for the treaty came from developing countries, culminating in a joint call by the heads of state at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development "to negotiate within the framework of the CBD ... an international regime to promote and safeguard the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources".

This call was the result of deep concerns over past and continuing biopiracy of the biological resources of developing countries and the traditional knowledge of their indigenous peoples and local communities.

At the end of the Cali meeting--and after more than five years of work--developed countries agreed to document L.2 that contains the 18-page "Revised Draft Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity". (See related story: "The Draft Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing is born in Cali," CBD Press Release, March 28, 2010.)

The meeting was adjourned and will resume at the end of June (to be confirmed) for another seven days, focusing solely on negotiating the text of the draft protocol.

At its 9th meeting in 2008, the COP instructed the Working Group "to finalize the international regime and to submit for consideration and adoption by the Conference of the Parties at its tenth meeting (in 2010) an instrument/instruments".

Therefore, there was pressure for the Working Group to submit a draft protocol to the United Nations headquarters for circulation to all Parties by 18 April. Under UN rules, a draft treaty must be circulated six months before it is formally adopted. In this case, the next COP meeting of the CBD begins on 18 October.

For many years, developed countries have resisted the calls of developing countries for a single legally binding international agreement to deal with access and benefit sharing. Their preferences ranged from voluntary guidelines to an "international regime" comprising legally binding and non-legally binding instruments (but not a single agreement).

By the Cali meeting, almost all Parties in the Working Group affirmed that the international regime is a single legally binding protocol under the CBD. The exception was Canada, which explicitly stated its position: the international regime comprises existing international instruments and processes dealing with access and benefit sharing, future international agreements and a protocol.

DEEP DIVISIONS PREVAIL

All Parties agree that compliance is at the core of the protocol in order to prevent biopiracy of biological resources and associated traditional knowledge, and to ensure fair and equitable benefit sharing with the countries of origin/provider countries and their indigenous and local communities.

All Parties agree that there is a need for legal certainty and transparency in the national and international mechanisms and measures to ensure that the third objective of the CBD is achieved. [The CBD has three objectives: biodiversity conservation, the sustainable use of components of biodiversity, and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources.]

However, there is still no agreement on key issues, including the following:

• Scope of the protocol (whether it should be comprehensive in setting access and benefit sharing norms for other international agreements and processes that address this issue; whether it should cover derivatives of biological resources and continued/new uses of biological resources acquired before the CBD entered into force and now held in public and private ex situ collections such as botanical gardens, gene banks, and seed banks; whether it should cover genetic resources in the Antarctica); Standards for granting access to genetic resources (developed countries want internationally binding standards to secure access while developing countries say that access is a matter of national legislation and the primary objective of the protocol is benefit sharing to correct past and continuing injustice);
• Obligations for monitoring, tracking and reporting of the use of biological resources (developing countries want mandatory disclosure requirements and check points such as user countries' regulatory authority, publicly funded research institutions, research publishers, intellectual property examination offices and product approval authorities; and an internationally recognised certificate as evidence of compliance with national law on prior informed consent and mutually agreed terms - disclosure requirements shall be met when a user provides this certificate. Developed countries prefer "flexibility" and discretion to put in place the list of measures);
• Traditional knowledge (TK) of indigenous peoples and local communities (TK associated with biological resources has emerged as a crucial central issue, with developing countries, Norway, indigenous peoples’ representatives and NGOs supporting the inclusion of TK as a cross-cutting issue in the protocol. The European Union prefers to deal with TK in a separate section. Canada and New Zealand cite domestic circumstances for diluting provisions related to TK and in particular do not support compliance measures to protect TK. Many developed countries promote the World Intellectual Property Organisation for TK protection, opposed by developing countries. The International Indigenous Forum for Biodiversity stated in Cali that they do not trust WIPO and prefer the protocol under the CBD where the structure, capacity and information for compliance is being established);
• Technology transfer and cooperation (technology transfer is an obligation under the CBD that has not been implemented and developing countries are concerned that developed countries seek to dilute this obligation);
• Financial mechanism (developed countries want the Global Environment Facility, which is also the CBD financial mechanism, while developing countries want an independent financial mechanism under the protocol itself);
• Relationship between the protocol and other international instruments and processes (developing countries want other instruments and processes to be consistent with the CBD but a number of developed countries favour "specialized" agreements and arrangements that developing countries fear may "drain the protocol of meaning" and at the same time fail to ensure benefit sharing).

by Kaitlin Mara, Biotech United Nations News

Benefits from sharing and using biodiversity of food crops could soon be making their way to stakeholders, as the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture prepares to make its benefit-sharing fund fully operational.

For the first time, say members of the treaty secretariat, this fund completes the circle from the guardians of living genetic resources - farmers, often in developing countries and transition economies - to the technological innovators who need access to and use those genetic resources - such as plant breeders, biotechnology firms or agribusinesses - and then back to the countries where the genetic resources originate in the form of shared benefits.

The first call for proposals to the benefit fund went out in 2008, with the due date for applicants to submit concept notes and the application form falling on 15 January 2009. Grants of a maximum of US$50,000 will be given to “organisations that work towards maintaining and increasing the use of genetic resources for food and agriculture” and in particular that focus on the priorities of technology transfer and capacity building, conservation of genetic resources on farm, and sustainable use of those resources.

The international treaty, an initiative launched by the Rome-based UN Food and Agriculture Organization, was designed to facilitate the exchange of genetic resources for food and agriculture. Cooperation in such exchanges is necessary to ensure global food security, the treaty’s website claims, as no single country is completely self-sufficient in terms of genetic resources. A study released by the FAO in 1997 supports this assertion, according to the treaty secretariat. This interdependence is likely to be especially true when looking toward a future where scientists, plant breeders and farmers will need strategies for coping with the effects of a changing climate on crop growth. The treaty achieves its aims this through a multilateral system of access and benefit-sharing, through which contracting parties agree to make available genetic resources on 64 major food crops - accounting for 80 percent of human consumption. For more details on the international treaty see (IPW, Biodiversity, 7 August 2008).