Will "COP 9" take measures to stop "BIOPIRACY"?

By: Kamalesh Adhikari
20 May 2008, Bonn, Germany

 Nearly 7,000 participants from 191 countries have been said to be participating in the ninth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 9) that started yesterday at the Maritim Hotel in Bonn, Germany. In this global gathering, contracting parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) are expected to take concrete steps to conserve and sustainably manage the world’s biodiversity, that too, not undermining the rights of local and indigenous communities. Among many issues that are central to biodiversity conservation and its sustainable use, one issue that is going to create a significant amount of pressures on parties negotiating in the COP 9 is the issue of appropriately addressing the concern of biopiracy and misappropriation of traditional knowledge.

Proposals submitted by various contracting parties and groups of countries, including by indigenous caucuses, have identified several options to deal with the issue of biopiracy and misappropriation of traditional knowledge. During negotiations on International Regime on Access and Benefit Sharing, it is thus important that countries identify a path that calls for the measures and regulations to prevent any form of biopiracy and misappropriation of traditional knowledge. In this regard, two things must be considered importantly by countries that have ratified the Convention and are at present in Bonn to determine a future path to conserve biodiversity and sustainably use it for the welfare and development of communities and the entire world.

First, parties must make concrete progress towards finding strategies to effectively implement a 'legally-binding international regime on access and benefit sharing'. This will require all parties, both developing and developed ones, to respect, recognize and implement the two important equity principles of Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)-'benefit sharing' and 'prior informed consent'-in any processes of the commercial use of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, including for obtaining any form of intellectual property rights.  Second, parties must reach consensus on 'disclosure requirement', which is also a hotly debated issue in negotiations at the 'Council for TRIPS' for the review of Article 27.3 (b) of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This will create additional support to reduce divergence during negotiations for the review of Article 27.3 (b). It is important to note that reaching such consensus during WTO negotiations is much more difficult due to the nature, scope and objectives of the multilateral trading system. Hence, the COP 9 of the UN-CBD has to play a major role in this regard.

During negotiations at the COP 9, parties must bear in mind that without incorporating these two important issues in the further work programme of the implementation of the CBD, there will be no effort to stop biopiracy, protect the rights of local, indigenous and farming communities, and promote the judicious and sustainable use of biodiversity.