Objective, scope, fair and equitable benefit sharing, access and compliance

A diverse range of industries utilize genetic resources in their everyday business, and access, use and create value from these resources in different ways. These industries - many of which consist in large part of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) - play an essential role in creating social and economic benefits from genetic resources. As the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) negotiations struggle with the challenge of increasingly complex issues and a call to move toward a more practical discussion based on established common terms and definitions, business can assist in clarifying exactly how genetic resources are accessed, developed and commercialised and methods to best ensure the sharing of benefits. All businesses are engaged in a continuous evaluation of risk and return on investment. A high risk environment will discourage investment and reduce opportunities for creating benefits.

Given the long time period and heavy investments required to commercialize inventions using genetic resources, businesses need national laws or guidelines which are transparent, practical, science-based, non-discriminatory, and provide legal certainty to justify their investments. Business therefore supports the creation of a practical and workable IR which will facilitate the activities of the different sectors working with genetic resources today and take into account the future evolution of those activities.

This paper outlines general principles business believes to be important to the success of an IR and specifically provides input to the issues which the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Access and Benefit Sharing (AHOEWG) is mandated to negotiate at its 7th meeting: objective, scope, fair and equitable benefit-sharing, access and compliance.