Nagoya Protocol

Abstract: The tenth session of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity successfully adopted the ‘Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity’ in October 2010. This article identifies the main challenges in the final negotiations and explains the framework for access and benefit-sharing established by the Protocol both for genetic resources and for traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources. It also describes in more detail the Protocol's economic, temporal and geographic scope; its relationship to other international instruments; the treatment of pathogens; the role of non-commercial research; and the global multilateral benefit-sharing mechanism. The article then identifies next steps at national level and at international level – in the Intergovernmental Committee set up to prepare the entry into force of the Protocol – to ensure that the Nagoya Protocol becomes a major tool for benefit-sharing as well as for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.

Abstract: Increasing our understanding of Earth’s biodiversity and responsibly stewarding its resources are among the most crucial scientific and social challenges of the new millennium. These challenges require fundamental new knowledge of the organization, evolution, functions, and interactions among millions of the planet’s organisms. Herein, we present a perspective on the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP), a moonshot for biology that aims to sequence, catalog, and characterize the genomes of all of Earth’s eukaryotic biodiversity over a period of 10 years. The outcomes of the EBP will inform a broad range of major issues facing humanity, such as the impact of climate change on biodiversity, the conservation of endangered species and ecosystems, and the preservation and enhancement of ecosystem services. We describe hurdles that the project faces, including data-sharing policies that ensure a permanent, freely available resource for future scientific discovery while respecting access and benefit sharing guidelines of the Nagoya Protocol. We also describe scientific and organizational challenges in executing such an ambitious project, and the structure proposed to achieve the project’s goals. The far-reaching potential benefits of creating an open digital repository of genomic information for life on Earth can be realized only by a coordinated international effort.

Abstract: The 2010 Nagoya Protocol under the Convention on Biological Diversity and recent changes in the policies of major international conservation organizations highlight current interest in revisiting the moral case for conservation. Concerns with equity and human rights challenge well-established notions of justice centered on human responsibility toward nature, the common good or the rights of future generations. This review introduces an empirical approach to the analysis of justice and shows how conservation scientists can apply it to ecosystem services-based governance (or in short, ecosystem governance). It identifies dominant notions of justice and points out their compatibility with utilitarian theories of justice. It then discusses the limited appropriateness of these notions in many contexts in which conservation takes place in the Global South and explores how technical components of ecosystem governance influence the realization of the notions in practice. The review highlights the need for conservation scientists and managers to analyze the justice of ecosystem governance in addition to their effectiveness and efficiency. Justice offers a more encompassing perspective than equity for the empirical analysis of conservation governance.

Abstract: According to the Convention on Biological Biodiversity, as specified by the Nagoya Protocol of 2010 states have sovereign rights over their genetic resources. They are entitled to regulate the access to them and ask for the sharing of benefits drawn from them. A similar regime applies to traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources that is held by local and indigenous communities. The article lays out the details of the exchange relationships between providers and users of genetic resources and traditional knowledge, and elaborates reform suggestions for national legislation of both provider and user states implementing the Protocol.

Abstract: The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) commits its 196 nation parties to conserve biological diversity, use its components sustainably, and share fairly and equitably the benefits from the utilization of genetic resources. The last of these objectives was further codified in the Convention's Nagoya Protocol (NP), which came into effect in 2014. Although these aspirations are laudable, the NP and resulting national ambitions on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) of genetic resources have generated several national regulatory regimes fraught with unintended consequences ( 1 ). Anticipated benefits from the commercial use of genetic resources, especially those that might flow to local or indigenous communities because of regulated access to those resources, have largely been exaggerated and not yet realized. Instead, national regulations created in anticipation of commercial benefits, particularly in many countries that are rich in biodiversity, have curtailed biodiversity research by in-country scientists as well as international collaboration ( 1 ). This weakens the first and foremost objective of the CBD—conservation of biological diversity. We suggest ways that the Conference of the Parties (CoP) of the CBD may proactively engage scientists to create a regulatory environment conducive to advancing biodiversity science.