CISDL’s sustainable biodiversity law programme seeks to develop and define the inter-linkages between different biodiversity-related policies and law in economic, environmental and social regimes. It also seeks to strengthen connections between biodiversity initiatives at the national, regional and international levels. The programme focuses its research on two areas in particular: access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing (ABS), and biosafety. The ABS research follows the ongoing discussions on this topic taking place at the Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Trade Organization, and the World Intellectual Property Organization. Our projects and writings have examined the implementation of ABS measures, existing gaps in ABS systems, and future research priorities on ABS. The biosafety research follows the processes of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the WTO in particular. Our projects and writings include work on the implementation of national biosafety regimes, case studies of innovations in biosafety law, analyzing pressing sustainable development questions in biosafety law and policy including food aid and socio-economic considerations, and surveying the current state-of-play of biosafety law.

Implementing Biosafety Protocol Regulatory Regimes: The CISDL has a partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme – Global Environment Facility Biosafety Project and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). A legal brief and research paper were drafted, reviewed in an academic workshop held with the UN Biodiversity Convention Secretariat on the entry into force of the Biosafety Protocol, then edited into a joint CBD / CISDL working paper, which was reviewed at the first UN CBD Meeting of the Parties (MOP) to the Protocol in 2004. This led to a contract with IDRC to complete a new scoping study to define upcoming research on these issues, which was done in March, 2005. The CISDL also carried out regional training in Santiago, Chile, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and Maputo, Mozambique, and developed a regulatory assessment tool kit for the UNEP-GEF Biosafety Project. The CISDL then undertook to review the new biosafety laws of over fifteen Francophone African countries, providing advice and technical assistance. A framework for review was developed by 3 research fellows, with advice from the lead counsel, and many of the NBFs and related draft laws (Madagascar, Togo, Niger, Cote d’Ivoire, The Congo, Senegal, Mali, Benin, Algeria, Guinee, Comores, etc) were reviewed. In 2005 – 2006, the contract was renewed to work on Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific Islands, including Lebanon, Gabon and the Comores Islands. UNEP has provided very favourable reviews of this work, and co-hosted a Special Reception with the CISDL for all countries who have completed their NBFs at the McGill Faculty Club on June 02, 2005, during the second Meeting of the Parties (MOP) of the Cartagena Protocol to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. At the reception, the first draft of a new book, ‘When Biosafety Becomes Binding: Legal Aspects of Implementing the Cartagena Protocol’, was launched for consultation, and this manuscript continues to be developed, for submission to Oxford University Press in 2006 or 2007.

Access Contracts for Genetic Resources and Sharing of Benefits, in the context of negotiations for a New International Regime: This research examines the nature, scope and potential elements of an international regime on access and benefit-sharing in biodiversity. The project began when two academic workshops were held parallel to the CBD meetings, and a scoping study to define a research agenda was carried out. A CISDL – IDRC research meeting was held at the UN Biodiversity Convention COP in Kuala Lumpur in February 2004 to confirm this agenda. The scoping study led to the initiation of a new research project, supported by the IDRC and Environment Canada, on Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) Contracts in civil and common law countries. The project focuses on mentoring a new generation of ABS researchers, and developing a series of papers on how experiences with these contracts might inform the new international regime negotiations. The Programme will prepare a book with the research paper and selected invited chapters on key ABS issues. The project hosted a 3-week seminar for junior researchers from Costa Rica, India, Kenya, Peru and Canada, in the fall of 2004, where the researchers received training, developed joint research papers, and met with legal and policy experts. The research partners presented their results at the UN CBD Ad-Hoc Open-Ended Working Group on ABS, and began planning the next phase of a four-year project with the IDRC. A proposal has been submitted to IDRC for its consideration. A short summer course was held to train researcher assistants from the McGill Law Faculty in this area of law, funded by Environment Canada.

Scoping Domestic ABS Law and Policy: The researchers also undertook a scoping study for Environment Canada on the national and regional implementation of ABS and the resulting legal working paper was published (in its third edition) in December, 2005. The study has been presented at workshops and side events in Whitehorse, Québec, Addis Ababa, Bangkok and Grenada and CISDL is proposing to continue work on the paper, including more analysis on legal trends, specific countries and the level of implementation of the FAO IT provisions on ABS. A book chapter on “Factors Contributing to Legal Reform for the Development and Implementation of Measures on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit-Sharing” was also prepared as a contribution to an IDLO Practice Manual and members of the Biodiversity Programme continue to participate in relevant international meetings and negotiations including as environmental NGO representatives on the Canadian delegation.

Jorge Cabrera Medaglia is the Lead Counsel of the Biodiversity Programme as well as a professor at the University of Costa Rica.

Research Fellows with the Biodiversity Programme include Kathryn Garforth, Olivier Rukundo, Sylvestre Manga, Isabel López Noriega, and Gabriel R. Nemogá Soto, a Senior Research Fellow with CISDL and also a professor at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, has worked with the Biodiversity Programme on access and benefit-sharing issues.

Other CISDL members who cooperate with, and lead projects in the area of sustainable development law on biodiversity include Kent Nnadozie, Lead Counsel of the Natural Resources programme, has also worked on ABS issues with the Biodiversity programme; Christine Frison, a Research Fellow with the Natural Resources programme, has contributed to both the ABS and biosafety work of the Biodiversity programme.

August 2005 – The CISDL’s Biodiversity Research Programme plans, over the next months, to update and expand the ‘Overview of the National and Regional Implementation of Measures on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit-Sharing’. This third edition should be available in November 2005. For the first edition, see here.

June 2005 – The Biodiversity Programme, along with the UNEP-GEF Biosafety Project, hosted a reception during MOP-2 of the Biosafety Protocol for associates from around the world. A new Biosafety Working Paper was also launched during the event.

May 2005 – The CISDL has agreed to provide further legal and technical advice to the United Nations Environment Programme / Global Environment Facility Biosafety Project on the implications of the Cartagena Protocol for the development of national biosafety frameworks, focusing in particular on developing country regulatory regimes in Francophone Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, the Pacific Islands and the Caribbean.

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