B - Convention on Biological Diversity

VI. Access and Benefit SharingI. IntroductionAccess to genetic resources and fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of their utilisation (Accessand Benefit Sharing - ABS), including appropriate transfer and exchange of the relevant technologies 4 , takinginto account all the rights over these resources and to technologies, remains one of the three main objectives ofthe <strong>Convention</strong> on Biological Diversity (CBD). The <strong>Convention</strong> recognizes the sovereign right of the contractingparties to establish a legislative regime for management of genetic resources. Simultaneously, the states thathave assumed the obligations of CBD should attempt to create such conditions that facilitate access to geneticresources and for their use by other contracting parties in an environmentally sound way. Access to geneticresources in the framework of CBD is based on the conditions mutually agreed by the Contracting Party thatprovides the genetic resource and the Contracting Party that accepts them. It is important that each ContractingParty must agree in advance to access to its genetic resources, unless it decides otherwise (Article 15 of the<strong>Convention</strong>).The Access and Transfer of Technology is another cross-cutting activity of the CBD which is related to the topicof access and benefit sharing (Article 16 of the <strong>Convention</strong>). The Contracting Parties of CBD undertake to provideand /or facilitate access for and transfer to other Contracting Parties of technologies that are relevant to theconservation and sustainable use of biological diversity or make use of genetic resources and do not causesignifi cant damage. Access to and transfer of technology to developing countries shall be provided under fair andmost favourable terms. In the past these countries were and remain the greatest donors of a substantial part ofgenetic resources that are used primarily in the developed countries.The Bonn Guidelines, prepared by the ABS working group at the first meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended WorkingGroup on Access and Benefi t-Sharing, were adopted at the sixth meeting of the Conference of Parties to CBD(Hague, April 2002). The COP Decision recommends that the Contracting Parties use them when developingand drafting their own legislative, administrative or policy measures on access and benefi t sharing. Unliketo the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, which is binding for its Contracting Parties, the Bonn Guidelines areimplemented on a voluntarily basis.The Open-ended Inter-Sessional Meeting on the Multi-Year Programme of Work of the Conference of the Partiesup to 2010 (Montreal, March 2003) discussed ABS again and invited the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Groupon Access and Benefit-Sharing and Contracting Parties to consider the process, nature, scope, elements andmodalities of an international regime on ABS. The implementation plan of the World Summit on SustainableDevelopment (Johannesburg, August/September 2002) also supported this concept and requested the UNMember States to begin the discussion about ABS regime.The Second meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Access and Benefi t-Sharing discussed theformat of such a regime (Montreal, December 2003). The seventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to theCBD (Kuala Lumpur, February 2004) requested the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Access and Benefit-4 Technology means, in this relation, not only the actual tangible technology (hardware), such as the various apparatus or computernetworks, but also diverse methods, skills and procedures (software), e.g., patents, methodologies for evaluation of the degree ofendangerment of taxa or ecological (functional) groups, Geographical Information Systems (GIS), procedures of modern biosystematicsor genetic analysis, or the manners of management of protected species, habitats and areas. From the viewpoint of access to geneticresources and fair sharing of benefits following from their use, it is important that technology also includes biotechnology.48