Balanced Options for Access and Benefit-Sharing: Stakeholder Insights on Provider Country Legislation

Abstract

The over-arching aim of the access and benefit-sharing (ABS) of genetic resources is to enable fair distribution of benefits between the users (such as universities and biotech companies) and providers (such as biodiversity rich countries) so as to both open the doors for innovation and create incentives for biodiversity conservation. Access to genetic resources is crucial for research related to conservation of plant genetic resources as well as R&D for agricultural products and evolved crops that can attain to the new weather conditions climate change brings. Therefore, access to genetic resources in general as well as benefit-sharing from that access is a key element for sustainable development in order to secure research as well as environmental sustainability and resource availability. ABS is currently a rapidly developing and evolving field that is shaped by each and every implementation of the Parties. This means that the national implementation of the Parties determine how ABS goals are realised and how ABS principles find form within regulatory mechanisms. These principles are found in international legal documents such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as well as Nagoya Protocol. Additionally, decisions and guidelines drafted by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity shape these principles that are then to be fulfilled by the Parties when drafting their ABS laws by means of implementing regulatory mechanisms that comply with the international law. This article reviews 20 provider country’s ABS frameworks as well as one regional law with the aim of identifying the common regulatory mechanisms that find place in these legal texts. This descriptive approach is then followed by an empirical comparative analysis through semi-structured stakeholder interviews in order to identify the most beneficial regulatory mechanisms according to ABS experts that belong in four different stakeholder groups (provider countries, academic users, industrial users and collections)

Conservation Policy: Helping or hindering science to unlock properties of plants and fungi

“…We focused on 20 countries where analyses of ABS legislation data were available (Sirakaya, 2019). They were selected based on biodiversity richness, signatory status to the NP, age of ABS framework, economic status and we also aimed to include at least one country per continent.…”

Stakeholder Perspectives on Access and Benefit-Sharing for Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction

“…A description of five of the access elements considered in this study (regulatory/governance mechanism, material scope, mechanisms to trigger access, utilization scope, facilitated access), and why they might be important, can be found in Sirakaya (2019). Three additional access elements in this study, which were not considered by Sirakaya (2019), include:…”

“…Governance of MGR in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) requires consideration of options related to access and also to benefit-sharing. There is as yet no legal, internationally accepted definition of the term "access" to genetic resources (Sirakaya, 2019). In addition, the requirement for governance of access in the BBNJ instrument has not yet been determined (UNGA Res.…”

Designing Regulatory Frameworks for Access to Genetic Resources: A Multi-Stakeholder Multi-Criteria Approach

“…Written informed consent forms were obtained from all of these experts. The analysis and scoring of the interview results derive from both the literature review in Sirakaya (2019a) and the interview analysis in Sirakaya (2019b). Since the interviewees were initially the respondents to the surveys related to ABS goals, their perception of the effect of the regulatory options on the goals has not been difficult to obtain.…”

“…Likewise, when refining our conclusions related to the temporal scope, as well as the activity scope, and the implications on criteria N • 1 (predictability), N • 2 (legal certainty) and N • 3 (transparency) thereof, we resorted to many sources of literature (Seiler and Dutfield, 2001;Orsini et al, 2008;Andersen et al, 2010;Schei and Tvedt, 2010;Oliva, 2011;Coolsaet and Pitseys, 2014;Morgera et al, 2014;Prip and Rosendal, 2015;Wyss, 2017) in order to be able to rank the best option to enable the attainment of these goals. The diversity in our literature sources allowed us to enrich our conclusions regarding stakeholder opinion.…”