New Legislation and Practice and Compliance with Nagoya Protocol. Workshop presentations and discussions.

EVANSON CHEGE KAMAU; CHINA WILLIAMS ; GERD WINTER ; CHRISTIANNE GODT ; VICTORIA CABRERA ORMAZA ; CHRIS LYAL ; MARIE SCHOEL; E BECK; THOMAS GREIBER ; MT MAHOP ; LUCIANA SILVESTRI; JC MEDAGLIA ; BT NGUYEN

Bremen

Workshop; I Workshop "New Legislation and Practice and Compliance with Nagoya Protocol"; 2017

Research Center for European Environmental Law (FEU), University of Bremen

Our research focuses on access to genetic resources, traditional knowledge and benefit-sharing under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) of 1992. The Convention protects the diversity of species and habitats, as well as genetic diversity within animal and plant species. The Convention came into force in 1993 and has a membership of 196 states and the EU. It has three objectives: conservation of biodiversity, sustainable use of its components and benefit-sharing. The purpose of this third objective is, in particular, to ensure that the countries that have genetic resources - typically the developing countries - have a share in the resulting uses. Thus, the CBD pursues not only an ecological approach but also a socio-economic objective. The latter is substantiated by the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity. This additional protocol to the CBD was adopted in 2010. It came into force in 2014 and has now been ratified by 104 states and the EU. The focus of the research is on the new regulations on ABS of the Protocol.The Nagoya Protocol abrogated public domain access to genetic resources under international law. This has fundamentally changed the legal framework for research and development (R&D) with genetic resources. Obligations were introduced to identify genetic resources in the field as well as in the laboratory based on cooperation with the countries of origin. These obligations must be transposed into national law by all parties to the Protocol. The European Union (EU) has transposed the Nagoya Protocol with Regulation (EU) No 511/2014 by introducing compliance standards applicable across the Union, but with the due diligence, a non-Nagoya Protocol concept, as its core concept for compliance. A number of EU member states have already implemented the EU Regulation implementing the obligations of the Nagoya Protocol domestically, including Germany, France and Spain. Similarly, implementation activities continue in many CBD member states, although some states still lack practical solutions for implementation. Many issues remain either controversial or unresolved. Examples include questions about Digital Sequence Information (DSI); scope of provider rights; the role of databases; inadequate definitions of CBD central terminology such as genetic resources, utilization; or incomplete regulations on the necessary proof of compliance with the CBD, e.g. for non-commercial users of genetic resources, as well as the related verification of compliance with international legal requirements, etc.