[A2k] NGOs call for legally-binding ABS regime at CBD Conference

[Sangeeta]

NGOs call for legally-binding ABS regime

Published by SUNS #6401 Monday 28 January 2008

Geneva, 25 Jan (Kanaga Raja) -- Non-governmental organizations attending the
sixth meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Access and
Benefit-Sharing (ABS) of the Convention on Biological Diversity have called
for a legally-binding international regime on access to genetic resources
and the equitable sharing of the benefits arising from their use.

The sixth meeting of the Ad Hoc Working Group took place from 22-25 January
and continued discussions of the fifth meeting of the group at Montreal in
October 2007.

The Ad Hoc Working Group has been mandated to elaborate and negotiate an
international regime for the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising
out of the utilization of genetic resources with the aim of adopting an
instrument or instruments to amongst others effectively implement the
provisions of Article 13 and Article 8 (j) of the Convention.

This is the last substantive meeting of the Working Group before the ninth
Conference of Parties (COP).

At a press briefing Friday, Francois Meienberg of the Berne Declaration said
that Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) is one of the three pillars of the CBD
- the others being conservation and sustainable use.

"It is quite clear that without this ABS, or to say in other words, without
justice, the whole house could not stand," he said, adding that "we need
justice and we need access and benefit sharing."

He noted that since the CBD came into force in 1993, benefit sharing has not
been implemented. There is nothing going from the user countries - from
pharmaceutical companies and so on - to the providers of genetic resources
who are in most cases in the global South.

Citing the adoption of voluntary guidelines on ABS in 2002 (the Bonn
guidelines), he said that it was quite clear that this cannot be the
solution.

Voluntary guidelines have not worked, he said, adding that the only way to
solve the problem of non-implementation of access and benefit-sharing is to
have something really binding.

He also noted that while the working group has been working on a regime on
ABS, it must be recognized that nearly nothing has happened (with regards to
a text).

He blamed certain Northern countries - especially Australia, New Zealand,
Canada and Japan - for blocking the process. These countries have said that
they are not ready to negotiate a legally-binding regime on ABS.

At the eighth meeting of the COP in Curitiba in 2006, the working group was
requested to complete its work at the earliest possible time before the
tenth meeting of the COP, to be held in 2010.

The activist from the Swiss-based organization was of the view that it would
seem to be very difficult to reach this target.

Gladman Chibememe from the Africa region indigenous and local community
caucus highlighted the issue of capacity-building in Africa. A major issue
for indigenous and local communities from Africa is related to traditional
knowledge (TK) and capacity building.

"We identify TK as a very essential component of our livelihood and our
being and that this TK should become an integral part of the regime," he
said.

"If TK is included in the regime, we will have a real stake in the regime
because TK is the only mechanism in the regime which may not be manipulated
by technology," he added, unlike genetic resources which could be
manipulated by genetic engineering.

On capacity building, he emphasized the need to have a sustainable financial
mechanism in which local communities would have resources channelled
directly to them. He also emphasized the need to have a bottom-up approach
in terms of establishing institutions.

"We are calling for a legally binding ABS regime... which should have
provisions that identify indigenous and local communities as real and
meaningful beneficiaries to the whole process," he said.

Sangeeta Shashikant from Third World Network highlighted the link between
the discussions on an ABS regime and discussions taking place this week at
the WHO on the issue of influenza virus sharing and benefit sharing.

Providing some background to the issue of avian flu virus sharing,
Shashikant noted that world attention had focused on the problem when
Indonesia publicly announced that it would no longer provide bird flu
viruses to the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance Network (GISN), as the
system was unfair to the interests and needs of developing countries.

Shashikant highlighted that vaccines developed from candidate vaccine
viruses obtained from influenza viruses from affected countries are often
too costly and unavailable to affected developing countries that need them,
while developed countries have entered into advance purchase agreements to
book vaccines in the event of a pandemic.

She also noted that the system does not really provide capacity building for
developing countries so that they can also in the future do their own risk
assessment, as well as get access to required technology.

Shashikant said that one set of clear winners from the WHO system is the
commercial vaccine developers which have already obtained contracts from
developed countries and have a system where they can get viruses.

Developed countries are the other set of winners because they can afford
these vaccines, as they are already signing contracts (with vaccine
developers) and are getting free access to the viruses.

On the other hand, she said, developing countries have not gained much from
this scheme. The issue of fair and equitable benefit sharing is at the heart
of the ABS debate at the CBD.

The concrete case of virus sharing and benefit sharing is one aspect that
has to be looked at in the CBD negotiations, she said, adding that some of
the crucial issues are the same such as sovereign rights over biological
resources and prior informed consent.

Debra Harry from the Indigenous Peoples Council on Bio-Colonialism said that
indigenous peoples hold inherent and paramount rights over much of the
subject matter, specifically genetic resources and indigenous knowledge,
under negotiation in the CBD, and such rights have been recognized in
international human rights law, which Parties are obliged to uphold.

Such rights have been clearly articulated in the United Nations Declaration
on Indigenous Peoples' rights. It is time for the CBD to advance from 1992
to 2008, she said, adding that the CBD must be interpreted and implemented
in accordance with this body of international human rights law.

Carmen Ramirez from Colombia, representing the Latin American indigenous
caucus, cited an example in her country where a forest law was recently
declared unconstitutional in the Constitutional Court as it did not take
into account the prior informed consent of indigenous communities.

This is a very important example in a country like Colombia which is
approving and ratifying all conventions and customary international law but
which has not applied them in internal laws, she said. +