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Cartagena: Cartagena Protocol
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The Cartagena Convention is a comprehensive, umbrella agreement for the protection and development of the marine environment. This regional environmental convention provides the legal framework for cooperative regional and national actions in the WCR. The Convention is supplemented by the Oil Spills Protocol, the SPAW Protocol and the LBS Protocol.
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The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety applies to the transboundary movement and use of living modified organisms that may have adverse effects on biological diversity and human health. Mansour suggested that the Protocol may provide a template for the international regulation of biotech insects. He warned... that this approach has several drawbacks: the United States is not a signatory to the agreement, and the vague Precautionary Principle inspires the Protocol’s decision-making processes. The Precautionary Principle can come into play when policymakers must decide whether to adopt new technology if the technology may harm the environment. A significant problem in implementing the Precautionary Principle as a policy tool arises from the extreme variability in its interpretation with approaches ranging from risk averse to risk-taking.
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The Cartagena Protocol, with its potential to constrain trade in GMOs and create additional costs for companies and where import decisions are made at a national level, can be viewed as a regulatory-domestic regime under Levy and Prakash's model. The same is true of liability provisions that have been proposed by meetings of states parties to the Protocol. The biotech industry is resisting these provisions stating that such a system is unnecessary and would harm developing countries through inhibition of research, development and technology transfer
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The European Union Parliament has ratified the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, an agreement designed to regulate the international trade of products that contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The article says that to date, Denmark, Austria, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands had been the only European countries to ratify the Biosafety Protocol. "Other nations first wanted the protocol to have the blessing of the EU," the article reports. EU environment commissioner Margot Wallstrom praised the Parliament's decision. Meanwhile, Jonas Sjoestedt, a Swedish Left member of the Parliament, stated, "This legislation should help the EU to counter recent accusations by the U.S. administration that the EU is to blame for the African rejection of GM food aid last year." More information can be viewed online at the link below.
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This week in Cartagena, Colombia, diplomats from 175 countries open the final stage of negotiations for a Biosafety Protocol that is meant to regulate the movement of GM products between countries. The biotech industries, with strong backing from the U.S. and Canadian governments, are aiming for a weak treaty that gives no country the right to keep GM products out in order to shelter its population from the socio-economic impact of industrialized, capital-intensive forms of agriculture, or even on health and environmental grounds.
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Cartagena Protocol