Final Decisions of Convention on Biological Diversity Governing Body Available

By Kaitlin Mara
The final decisions of the ninth and most recent meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) organising body have been released, which include the breakthrough results of a work plan for achieving an international access and benefit-sharing regime.

While not appearing significantly different than prior versions discussed in this paper, the new document represents a completed synthesis of the meetings discussions. An “advanced copy subject to final approval,” according to the CBD website, can be read here.

One of the widely-touted successes of the CBD Conference of the Parties 19 – 30 May meeting (IPW, Biodiversity/Genetic Resources, 30 May 2008) was the approval of a way forward towards the establishment of an international access and benefit-sharing regime, with a target completion date of 2010. The document sets out a clear procedural way forward towards reaching this goal, including the establishment of three expert groups and the planning of three meetings of the ad-hoc working group on access and benefit sharing between now and 2010.

Intellectual property issues are seen to be linked to access and benefit-sharing, generally as a point of leverage for ensuring protection of and/or preventing misappropriation of traditional and local knowledge and genetic resources.

An annex to the access and benefit-sharing paper, while still containing many brackets, or disagreements, begins work on describing the substantive content of a future ABS regime. It mentions objectives in implementation of an ABS regime, scope, main components, and nature of such a regime.

Technology transfer is another issue of importance to intellectual property professionals discussed. An article is included in the final text inviting intergovernmental, research, and non-governmental organisations to “undertake further research on the role of intellectual property rights in technology transfer,” including explorations of open source innovation, how developing countries can cope with patent clusters, and trends in the application of flexibilities in developing countries under the World Trade Organization Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement.

Research consortia for the building of capacity in technology transfer, including patent pools and “intellectual property commercialisation agents” are also mentioned.

On the protection of local communities and indigenous knowledge, the so-called Article 8(j) and related provisions, a code of conduct was drafted for the ethical handling of the “cultural and intellectual heritage [of] indigenous and local communities” which emphasises applies to the “intellectual property of indigenous and local communities,” including traditional knowledge and biological diversity use.

The code of ethics calls for “community and individual concerns over, and claims to” IP on genetic resources and traditional knowledge be “acknowledged and addressed,” involving the indigenous and local communities who have ownership over these intellectual goods.

Kaitlin Mara may be reached at kmara@ip-watch.ch