Category: Access and benefit sharing of genetic resources

Terms of engagement: the trench war over bio-resources

Nathan Thanki June 23, 2011 0 Comments
~by Nathan Thanki Although not classically what many would immediately think of as being a priority for a Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which one might imagine is solely concerned with conservation of cuddly polar bear cubs and lush rainforests,  access and benefit sharing (ABS) for genetic resources and their derivatives have their own Nagoya Protocol (NP). So it is worth saying a...

Congratulations! … It’s a Protocol.

tzundel June 10, 2011 0 Comments
by Trudi Zundel It’s a fairly grotesque analogy: the Nagoya protocol as a newborn infant, finally emerging after years of arduous labour, ready to face the world but also helpless, in need of nurture and care. One would (or at least I did) expect the UN to be too reserved a forum for such visuals, yet Janet Lowe, ICNP Co-Chair from New Zealand, has analogised the Nagoya Protocol as such. This...

paranoia

COA Admin June 9, 2011 0 Comments
Although security is quite tame here in Montreal, once inside the building I notice the silent, uniformed men who guard bathrooms and closets, never saying anything. At a side event at lunch, I turned around only to see one such guard standing in a darkened, empty translating room, watching. In the plenary I notice them as they patrol up and down, looking along every row of laptops. Who do they...

The Personal is Political at the CBD

greeder June 9, 2011 0 Comments
~by Graham Reeder This week, three COA delegates have been observing the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Intergovernmental Committee for the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (UNEP-CBD-ICNP1), a technical meeting that aims to lay the groundwork for how to begin implementing the recently (Oct 2010) agreed upon...

Can we part with conventions?

Nathan Thanki June 8, 2011 1 Comment
by Nathan There’s nothing new under the hot Montreal sun, but it is worth noting anyway. The Intergovernmental Committee on the Nagoya Protocol opened Monday morning, the first meeting on access and benefit sharing since the Protocol was finalised at the COP last October. For a protocol that seems wholly unfinished—Swizz cheese with more holes than cheese as one observer put it, or, as new...