Balancing building blocks of a functional ABS system
This report seeks to identify a balanced approach to the components ‘building blocks’ of access and benefit sharing (ABS) of genetic resources for the purpose of making it functional and implementable at all levels (legal certainty). In order to achieve that, the paper identifies several possible ‘building blocks’ that may be useful in creating a balanced ABS regime.
The author thinks that the current several bilateral discussions between-genetic resources provider countries and countries that utilise their products can help protect against misunderstandings and allegations of bad-faith. In addition, they protect against biopiracy that may arise when the individual negotiations go forward without confirmation of key certainties.
The main findings of the paper are:
- a clearer map is needed of the coverage and processes that comprise ABS enabling countries to use whichever legal vehicles are most appropriate within their own systems for ABS implementation
- agreement among concerned parties about which activities constitute ‘utilisation of genetic resources’ can sharpen the basic understandings of the ABS process, defining one core trigger of the obligation to share benefits
- there is a need for official communication between the various users, providers, middlemen, countries and others that are directly involved in each ABS transaction
- one main aspect of a proper ABS is to propose a functional system which can operate on the ground between the private parties using the genetic resources in actual research and development.
