Geneva, Switzerland
February 7, 2014
Source: Intellectual Property Watch
A new website of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity will allow tracking of the use of genetic resources in order to ensure access and benefit-sharing of those resources.
Beatriz Gomez Castro, associate programme officer at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), this week presented the Access and Benefit Sharing Clearing-House (ABS-CH) website established further to Article 18.3 of the CBD and Article 14 of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing.
The presentation took place on 6 February at a side event to this week’s meeting of the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC).
The website, accessible here, relates to monitoring the utilisation of genetic resources to enhance legal certainty and transparency.
The creation of the website, Castro said, enables all to see “how monitoring could work in practice” and makes compliance of the ABS a reality.
Under the Nagoya Protocol, Castro explained, countries will have an obligation to provide permits when granting access to genetic resources (GR). These permits will be communicated to the ABS-CH and an international certificate of compliance will be issued.
Equally, the countries are required under Article 17 to gather information from GR users, such as relevant original source and utilization of GRs, at certain checkpoints, and then transmit this information to the ABS-CH.
The parties do retain the right to withhold any information that they deemed “confidential” so as not to make it open to the public.
Castro demonstrated how to use the website, and explained that the pilot phase will be launched after February.
Barabara Ruis, legal officer at the UN Environment Programme, was also present at the event, and invited feedback, adding “we can only see the bumps in the system once countries start using it.”
At present, there have been 29 ratifications to the Nagoya Protocol of the 92 signatories, and Castro remains optimistic that the remaining ratifications will take place in time for the next meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention in October 2014. According to the CBD website, 50 ratifications are needed for the protocol to enter into effect.
Some participants to the event expressed a need for greater capacity building and training to enable countries to first ratify the protocol, and then to implement it.
The delegation from Iran, for example, said, “so much is subject to national law in the Nagoya Protocol,” so that “capacity building activity is required to also help countries develop their national legislation according to the CBD.”
With regard to the IGC negotiations, Ruis took note that mention of the Nagoya Protocol had been dropped from the section on policy objective of the draft text (IPW, WIPO, 6 February 2014). However, she believes it remains implied in the term “international agreements and declarations.”
Ruis also pointed to specific mention of the protocol in Article 6.2 of the draft text and of the clearinghouse in Article 6.2, but told Intellectual Property Watch she would be concerned if it was deleted from this article in the future.
Castro said the CBD is working to build understanding on how to work with the IGC. She mentioned developments on both sides, with implementation of the Nagoya Protocol, and negotiations at the IGC, and believes they are “working towards moving together.”
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