The adoption of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2010 is a major landmark for the global governance of genetic resources and traditional knowledge. The way in which it will be translated into practice will however depend on the concrete implementation in national country legislation across the world. Implementing the Nagoya Protocol compares existing ABS regimes in ten European countries, including one non-EU member and one EU candidate country, and critically explores several cross-cutting issues related to the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol in the EU. Gathering some of the most professional and widely acclaimed experts in ABS issues, this book takes a major step towards filling a gap in the vast body of literature on national and regional implementation of global commitments regarding ABS and traditional knowledge.

The Nagoya Protocol is an unprecedented international environmental agreement that equally addresses development, distributive justice, and environmental sustainability. With a balanced view of the various possible interpretations of the Protocol provisions, in light of different national and regional perspectives, and a systematic highlighting of its legal innovations, Unraveling the Nagoya Protocol: A Commentary on the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing to the Convention on Biological Diversity will serve as a seminal work for all those interested in the environment, human rights, economics and both legal and scientific innovations.

The 2010 Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing in Perspective analyses the implications of this innovative environmental treaty for different areas of international law, and its implementation challenges in various regions and from the perspectives of various stakeholders.

The Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is rapidly receiving signatures and ratifications. Many countries are preparing to implement the protocol through national research permit systems and/or biodiversity laws. Yet there is still considerable confusion about how to implement the Protocol, regarding access and benefit-sharing (ABS) procedures, and minimal experience in many countries. This book seeks to remedy this gap in understanding by analysing a number of ABS case studies in light of the Nagoya Protocol. The case studies are wide-ranging, with examples of plants for medicinal, cosmetic, biotech and food products from or for development in Australia, North Africa, Madagascar, Switzerland, Thailand, USA and Oceania. These will encourage countries to develop national systems which maximise their benefits (both monetary and non-monetary) towards conservation and support for local communities that hold traditional knowledge. In addition, the author analyses new expectations raised by the Nagoya Protocol, such as the encouragement of the development of community protocols by indigenous and local communities. As a result, stakeholders and policy-makers will be able to learn the steps involved in establishing ABS agreements, issues that arise between stakeholders, and the types of benefits that might be realistic.

National implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) provisions has yielded enough challenges for providers and users of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge alike. The Nagoya Protocal brings novel ideas for resolving the challenges plaguing the Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) process in general and non-commercial research in particular. This is one of the first books to address research cooperation and facilitated access for non-commercial biodiversity research. It uniquely offers concrete and practicable solutions based on experiences of researchers and administrative officials with ABS, and on the interpretation of the Nagoya Protocol on how free and lively taxonomic research can be ensured while at the same time observing obligations of obtaining prior informed consent and sharing of benefits. This book will be useful to students of International Environmental Law, International Biodiversity Law, Intellectual Property Law, Climate Law and Law of Indigenous Populations. With foreword from Executive Secretary CBD, Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias.

This book analyses the status and prospects of the global governance of Access Benefit Sharing (ABS) in the aftermath of 2010’s Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The CBD’s initial 1992 framework of global ABS governance established the objective of sharing the benefits arising from the use of genetic resources fairly between countries and communities. Since then, ABS has been a contested issue in international politics – not least due to the failure of effective implementation of the original CBD framework. The Nagoya Protocol therefore aims to improve and enhance this framework. Compared to the slow rate of progress on climate change, it has been considered a major achievement of global environmental governance, but it has also been coined a ‘masterpiece of ambiguity’. This book analyses the role of a variety of actors in the emergence of the Nagoya Protocol and provides an up-to-date assessment of the core features of the architecture of global ABS governance. This book offers a central resource regarding ABS governance for those working on and interested in global environmental governance. This is achieved by focusing on two broad themes of the wider research agenda on global environmental governance, namely architecture and agency. Furthermore, individual chapter contributions relate and link ABS governance to other prominent debates in the field, such as institutional complexes, compliance, market-based approaches, EU leadership, the role of small states, the role of non-state actors and more. Partly due to its seeming technical complexity, ABS governance has so far not been at the centre of attention of scholars and practitioners of global environmental governance. In this book, care is taken to provide an accessible account of key functional features of the governance system which enables non-specialists to gain a grasp on the main issues involved, allowing the issue of ABS governance to move centre-stage and be more fully recognised in discussions on global environmental governance.