Implementing the FAO ‘Seed Treaty’ and its Multilateral ABS System

CISDL Legal Research Fellow Christine Frison prepared two new papers on the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (IT-PGRFA), one of them for presentation in the new Oxford Globalization &  Sustainable Development Law seminar. These articles will be published in the Revue Belge de Droit International, 2006-II and the International Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy (2006). A third article, ‘The Interdependence of Countries and Regions of the World on Food Crops’, in collaboration with the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), is projected. These articles will later become chapters in an upcoming book on new issues related to access to genetic resources for food and agriculture and the benefit-sharing derived from their utilisation. This work has led to a project proposal for the Canadian Ministry of Agriculture, the Foreign Minisy of the Netherlands, the Rockefeller Foundation and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to develop case studies, legal analysis and instruments to assist countries with the implementation of the FAO Seed Treaty (the IT-PGRFA). Partners such as FAO and IPGRI have been contacted, and case study research may be done in Uganda and Kenya. Two seminars on ‘IT-PGRFA and agro-biodiversity issues’ were held in Spring 2007 in SOAS in London and the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Brussels, Belgium. An upcoming volume will address new issues on access to genetic resources for food and agriculture and the benefit-sharing derived from their utilisation, as part of the new CISDL 'Treaty Regimes in Practice' Series for publication in 2010 or in 2011.

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