Access and Benefit-Sharing vs. Sustainable Development: Can we get there?

The over-arching aim of the access and benefit-sharing (ABS) of genetic resources is to enable fair distribution of benefits between the users (such as universities and biotech companies) and providers (such as biodiversity... [ view full abstract ]

The over-arching aim of the access and benefit-sharing (ABS) of genetic resources is to enable fair distribution of benefits between the users (such as universities and biotech companies) and providers (such as biodiversity rich countries) so as to both open the doors for innovation and create incentives for biodiversity conservation. Likewise, Target 16 of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15 also emphasises the importance of ABS for biodiversity conservation. Both of these goals are expected to be attained to by the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity and its Nagoya Protocol. So far, there are at least 74 countries with ABS in their laws and policies, 38 countries with procedures on ABS and 28 countries with access requirements (UEBT 2017). However, the current state of implementation does not demonstrate mutual trust between the user and provider which is vital to ensure fair distribution of benefits. Due to this lack of trust the countries tend to overregulate the access to their genetic resources without taking into account the user perspective, which results in less access and therefore less benefits to share (UNCTAD 2017, Wynberg and Laird 2018). Moreover, it is not possible to directly spot the link between how national laws handle creating incentives for biodiversity conservation by means of ABS (Prip and Rosendal 2015). Evidently, provider countries suffer from a lack of guidance which then results in them implementing an ABS model that is not beneficial for them or for the users. Therefore, there is an apparent need for a methodology in regulating mutually-supportive ABS models. The author has looked into over 20 countries’ ABS regulations and identified the commonly used regulatory mechanisms. This presentation will subject these commonly used regulatory mechanisms, when forming their national ABS systems, to a multi-criteria analysis. The multi-criteria analysis will take into account the perspectives of different stakeholders such as academic researchers, industrial users, collections and provider countries all over the world by means of both a stakeholder survey and in-depth interviews with stakeholder representatives. The author will examine to what extent each and every one of these mechanisms are relevant for the success of international ABS goals and SDG 15. This will be done with the aim of demonstrating that a mutually supportive ABS system that explicitly takes into account the needs of all stakeholders can aid the decision-makers in creating incentives for biodiversity conservation and unlocking genetic resources for innovation. Such an approach will then enable the international ABS system to function, attain to its goals and contribute to sustainable development.

Keywords: #SustainableDevelopmentGoals, #Goal15, #Biodiversity #NagoyaProtocol, #ABS