Policy Brief - Disclosing and Sharing Genetic Resources: Recommendations based on the WIPO Treaty and BBNJ Agreement
MARBLES and BlueRemediomics project partners, University of Aberdeen (UNIABDN) and ABS International (ABSint) have collaborated to develop a policy brief - Disclosing and Sharing Genetic Resources: Recommendations based on the WIPO Treaty and BBNJ Agreement. The aim is to disseminate the brief to policymakers at the upcoming 2024 United Nations (UN) Sixteenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP16) taking place in Cali, Colombia from 21 October - 1 November 2024.
Leaders from around the world meet every two years to discuss the current state of life on Earth and to negotiate agreements that protect biodiversity and prevent environmental degradation. Scientists, indigenous communities, business representatives and environment ministers from 196 countries will descend upon Cali to discuss progress towards the targets preserving biodiversity and how they will be monitored.
The policy brief summarises the contexts of international negotiation developments regarding genetic resources and the ocean, identifies key outcomes, and makes suggestions to EU and state policymakers responsible for implementing obligations under the WIPO and BBNJ agreements, aiming to inform future choices regarding access and benefit sharing (ABS), intellectual property (IP), Digital Sequence Information (DSI) and their intersections. The focus of the policy brief is on developments at the WIPO regarding the disclosure of the origin of genetic resources on which patent applications are based World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO Treaty), and on the Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement).