Hague meeting targets biopiracy

ITHACA, NEW YORK — On 19 April the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), meeting in The Hague, adopted a landmark set of international guidelines intended to protect developing countries from having their native plants and traditional remedies exploited solely for the benefit of drug, biotechnology and seed companies, most of which are in the developed world. Compliance with the guidelines is voluntary, but they provide the first widely accepted criteria for national licensing of access to genetic resources and are expected to influence legislation in many countries. The guidelines also propose concrete ways for profits from products derived from biological sources to be shared "fairly and equitably," both with the source countries and with indigenous groups whose traditional uses typically inspire bioprospecting researchers. Joshua P. Rosenthal, a key player in biodiversity research, described the new guidelines as "sensible and constructive." "Ultimately, these kinds of guidelines will help make the process of research collaboration less likely to run into political foul-ups, but the devil is in the details of implementation," said Rosenthal, who is director of International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups (ICBG) programs at the US National Institutes of Health. "Programs like ours have provided working models that tested many of the principles expressed in the guidelines. We have shown that such collaborations are not only possible but are powerful tools for improving human health and for promoting development."Rosenthal's program is currently overseeing collaborative projects in Panama, Madagascar, Surinam, Nigeria, Cameroon, Vietnam, Laos, Argentina, Chile and Mexico. A number of ICBG participants were involved in developing the Bonn Guidelines, and Brendan Tobin, who is part of an ICBG in Peru, was co-chair of the Access and Benefit Sharing contact group at the Hague meeting. Until recently plants, animals, and micro-organisms were considered to be a common heritage, and foreign researchers felt free to take biological resources from a country of origin and use them to develop drugs and other commercial products. The resulting products are sold by foreign companies under the protection of patents or other intellectual property rights. Meanwhile the country of origin — often part of the developing world — receives no benefit from the commercial exploitation of its resources.The CBD, to which 182 countries are parties, established the principle that states have sovereignty over their own genetic resources and are entitled to the "fair and equitable sharing of the benefits" those resources provide. The new guidelines are an effort to translate this precept into practice. The US, which accounts for the majority of alleged 'biopirates', has signed but not ratified the CBD and so was only an observer at the meeting.The Bonn guidelines were named for the working group meeting at which they were first proposed. They: • Make the "prior informed consent" of all stakeholders the keystone of access and benefit sharing.• Apply to all sources of genetic material except human genetic resources.• Encourage "capacity building" to help source countries develop the skills to negotiate and apply strong access and benefit-sharing arrangements. (Key capacity needs have been identified as: assessment and inventory of biological resources, contract negotiation skills, legal drafting skills, and means for the protection of traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources.)• Recommend that each country designate one "national focal point" for information about procedures required for obtaining prior informed consent and mutually agreed terms, including benefit-sharing.• Advise countries of origin to ensure that the commercialization and other uses of genetic resources do not prevent traditional uses.• Require that users of genetic resources use them only for purposes consistent with the terms under which they were originally acquired, and go back to the negotiating table if additional uses are desired. • Encourage (but do not require) disclosure of the country of origin and of traditional knowledge in patent and similar applications.• Require users to ensure "fair and equitable" sharing of benefits, including technology transfer to source countries.• Advise providers to "avoid imposition of arbitrary restrictions on access to genetic resources."Benefits are to be shared equitably "with all those who have been identified as having contributed to the resource management, scientific, and/or commercial process," including governmental, nongovernmental, or academic institutions, and local and indigenous communities, and "should be directed in such a way as to promote conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity." Proposed benefits include various fees and royalties, trust funds supporting conservation and sustainable use, research funding, salaries and preferential terms, joint ventures, sharing of research and development results, and various programs to train local and indigenous people in conservation and sustainable use practices.On a related track, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is also wrestling with the problem of regulating access to genetic resources, protecting traditional knowledge, and assuring that some of the benefits of new products from traditional sources trickle down to the countries whence those products derive and the indigenous groups whose folk-healing methods often provide. There was strong support at the CBD meeting for closer coordination between the CBD and WIPO on these issues. "Contracts based on the guidelines will give biodiversity-rich countries additional incentives to conserve and sustainably use their resources. They will offer local and indigenous communities with traditional knowledge fair compensation. And they will ensure a good deal for seed companies, plant breeders, and industries seeking genetic resources," said Hamdallah Zedan, Executive Secretary of the Convention. This analysis is unlikely to satisfy ecoactivist groups such as the Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (formerly the Rural Advancement Foundation International, but appearing at The Hague as the Coalition Against Biopiracy). The ETC group thinks that all biological materials should be excluded from patentability and gave its 2002 Captain Hook Awards for 'Most Offensive Biopiracy' and 'Most Dangerous Biopiracy' to the US Patent and Trademark Office.Two unresolved issues will affect the CBD and the WIPO, as well as the World Trade Organization. The first is whether to develop an internationally recognized certificate of origin that would include disclosure of genetic resources, country of origin, traditional knowledge and its source, and evidence that prior informed consent to use of the material was correctly obtained. The second is how to extend patent and other intellectual property rights to indigenous groups who have traditional knowledge of how to use native plants for medical and other purposes.

Hague meeting targets biopiracy

The UN Biodiversity Congress last week produced guidelines to curb biopiracy but they don't satisfy ecoactivists.

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