The need for a protocol

Our interpretation of recent scientific evidence leads us to conclude that biotechnological safety is a high political priority. Without comprehensive international regulation the potential for released biotechnological LMOs to cause ecological disruption is a significant risk to global biological diversity. The CBD is the only existing international agreement that provides a contemporary and accurate scientific context for the development of a bio-safety agreement.

By creating a model of high minimum standards for national and regional regulation, a bio-safety protocol would ensure that biotechnological activities carried out under the jurisdiction of a state do not cause damage to the environment of other states or areas beyond their national jurisdiction. This is in accordance with the Principle of the CBD, set forth in article 3. Governments arguing that there is no risk in transfers of LMOs resulting from biotechnology have often themselves had legally binding rules on bio-safety for many years and have followed those rules. However, because the products of biotechnology can have effects that cross political boundaries, separate national regulatory systems are not enough.

Legally, politically and economically, a protocol is needed to:

• provide a framework of legally binding standards for national regulation and regional agreements;
• integrate and make efficient the numerous existing multilateral instruments which affect the regulation of biotechnological products;
• expedite the development and implementation of national bio-safety regulations;
• facilitate the diffusion of techniques beneficial to biological diversity and essential to the progress of human health and sustainable agriculture (Chapters 14 and 16, Agenda 21);
• apply the precautionary principle to international regulation of the release of LMOs produced by biotechnology, which will help prevent damage to biological diversity (Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration).

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