The first legally binding international agreement governing the shipment of genetically modified organisms across borders has reinvigorated critics of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The new agreement, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, requires that the governments of signatory nations be notified when living GMOs such as crop plants are to be brought into the country with the intention of introducing them into the environment.1
Opponents already express concern about possible trade consequences of these new rules, which are intended to protect native biodiversity. The treaty's new GMO tenets have reopened the document to review and intensified the notion, even among scientists who initially embraced it, that it makes biodiversity research more difficult for everyone. "The treaty is an absolute disaster for scientists," says a senior United Nations official on condition of anonymity. "It draws no distinction between scientists bioprospecting for drugs and pharmaceuticals, scientists conducting academic research, and those ...
