What's
the Convention on Biological Diversity?
What does
it have to do with Intellectual Property Rights?
There is an increasing recognition among nations and different groups of people that conservation of biodiversity, the existing range of biological variation, is critical for the continued survival of human beings and the environment that makes this possible.
This page is dedicated to my father, M. Ramachandran,
in celebration of his 80th birthday on March 19, 2002.
Thank you, Appa, for inspiring me and encouraging me
to write down what I find much easier to talk about.
The above is the an anthropocentric statement of this 'awakening.' The statement represents one extreme of a wide range of viewpoints; at the other end, the major concern is survival of natural systems on this planet, regardless of what happens to human beings.
The Convention on Biological Diversity was an outcome of the coming together of different interests, each of which is governed by a different set of forces that lead to its particular concerns about the 'Biodiversity Problem.' Not surprisingly, it has not been a simple matter to find agreement among the different interests, many of which span national boundaries, as to what constitutes the conservation of biodiversity and its sustainable and equitable use.
Ten years later , therefore, there is much contention, but a surprising degree of agreement.
Can we
identify
the forces that contribute to this contention?
How are we to
understand the basis for the motley of concerns that have emerged?
What are the
connections between:
Intellectual Property Rights and Biodiversity?
Agriculture and Biodiversity ?
Access to Genetic Resources and Gene Patents?
'Terminator technology' and the Convention on Biodiversity?
What are the Forces at Play?
Boxed words constitute the major entities involved (biological or biochemical) .Unboxed words represent forces, whether technological or societal, the latter includes forces represented by institutions such as agriculture and industry.
Biological entities are modified by technology. Sustainability and IPR's represent societal goals or criteria that are sought to be optimized in a society.
Trends that may be responsible for on-going upheavals in many societies:
1. Going from 'green,' low input agriculture to industrialized agricultureForces that contribute to these trends operate in different nations to different extents. This variation reflects either different goals or different stages of development of nations. Developing and developed nations, as also different groups within one nation, may perceive 'equity' and 'fairness' somewhat differently.
2. This entails going from seeds that are freely exchanged to seeds under IPR's
3. 'Bioprospecting' for pharmaceuticals using new technologies (e.g., genomics)
4. Introduction of patent laws that allow patenting of genes of pharmaceutical
or agricultural interest
Discussion and
debate surrounding the regulation of GMO's, particularly crops, was
ongoing in the late 1980s, and the CBD emerged at a time when GMO's were in the public eye .
There may be broad agreement that:
1.
Biodiversity needs to be conserved, and that
2. To do
this, biodiversity needs to be used sustainably.
However, there are strong disagreements* on how to:
3. Ensure equitable use of, and access to, genetic resources.
'Genetic
resources' in this context include genes, proteins, phytochemicals,
seeds and organisms that have applied and commercial value. In the
past, the genetic resources consisting of seeds and organisms have been
freely available (often in developing nations) and value-added came
with industrial processing of these (in developed nations).
For example, a scientist from a pharmaceutical company may collect a plant from the Andean mountains, known to local people as having medicinal value and with their help. She may then go back to her laboratory in Switzerland, isolate the active principle and develop an effective anti-cancer drug. The company makes enormous profits from this effort. The company sees the profit as return of the risks it took and the investment it made in developing the drug; the Andean people may see it as exploitation of inherited knowledge that they maintain and generously give away, but get no return for.The CBD aims to do away with such inequitable exploitation. Many issues come up in applications , but it is recognized that a beneficial process is now in place that may have to be honed in practice before it becomes generally accepted.
A major point of contention revolves around agriculture, food trade, and ' agricultural biodiversity .' Given that agriculture is one of the major forces that affects biodiversity, it is a natural point of concern. Importantly, agricultural practices have a direct impact on biodiversity on farms and may affect local land races, wild crop relatives and wildlife that live in and around farmland. Implications of the use of genetically modified organisms (GMO's) in agriculture, in particular their ecological and societal impacts, became over-ridingly important and led, for instance, to US concerns* about the "selective, negative characterization and regulation of biotechnology" in the CBD. The just and equitable use of genetic resources long has been a subject of discussion in the FAO.
The release of GMO's was regulated in order to safeguard human health and the environment, and the Europeans wanted to be able to control food imports by requiring labeling of genetically modified food products. These concerns led to the formulation of the Biosafety Protocol .
When the
biotechnology patent for '
Technology Protection ' or ' Terminator Gene
' came
to the public eye, these general concerns came to a head . The
'terminator' gene represents the personification, on the one hand, of
small farmers' fears of losing the ability to save seeds for next
year's crop and on the other hand, of the biotechnology industry's need
to protect IPR's (including biotechnological modifications of seeds and
bioprospecting).