Political Declaration and Extracts from ECO 7, 3 Sept 2002

Draft Political Statement was published last night...

< http://www.joburgmedia.net/docs/200209021757169804.pdf >

Of particular note is the para on Trade that avoids mentioning TRIPs...

Para 39: We agree that an equitable, comprehensive, rule-based and predictable multilateral trading system is an essential means of implementing the Johannesburg Commitment.

ECO 7 recommends adding to this para 39:

"In this regard, we agree that there should be a review of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) at the Cancún WTO Ministerial meeting in 2003."

Full Text: < www.greenpeace.org/multimedia/download/1/24639/0/issue_seven_with_insert.pdf >

More from ECO 7, 3 Sept 2002

Report from Farmers' Convergence

At the NGO Forum at Nasrec, farmers are represented as a major group in the International Steering Group. Here, small-scale farmers have finally spoken, and are being heard. It will not, however, end with the summit. Through their organisations and PELUM, the farmers will build stronger alliances and partnerships, and continue to lobby government and international organisations for change.

A Farmer's Bad Dream

By PELUM's Small Farmer Convergence at the WSSD

PELUM Association is an indigenous network of civilsociety organisations in East and Southern Africa, learning, advocating and striving for food security, fair trade, community empowerment and ecological land-use management. Through workshops in preparation for the WSSD, the farmers have expressed the issues facing them through this little story.

I, Mirembe, a small-scale farmer from Mubende, had a dream. I was on my way to Mubende Health Facility, pregnant with my third child. I was anxious following the loss of my two eldest sons to HIV/AIDS who used to help me in the field. When I got to the clinic, there was no qualified doctor. Only someone who did not have a clue what he was doing.

I did not know where to go instead. Of course, we had no phone, and our roads were in a poor condition. In this dream, although I had a wealth of experience of farming and indigenous knowledge, I had very little money and could not afford alternative services.

And as I waited for the nurse, I prayed that the child in my womb would one day have access to training and extension services in agriculture to be able to afford a better life than mine. It was hot, but there was no shade under which I could rest as all the trees had been cut or burnt down for charcoal In this heat, I really needed to drink something. But the nearest source of water 12 kmaway was dirty. Our crops were drying because of lack of water, now, this is unbearable! I suddenly find myself waking up with burning thirst..

The only difference between my dream and my reality is that I am not pregnant. And I think to myself:

"What can I do for my children and their children?" Who can I tell about my bad dream? Who will listen to me?

Daniella Rosche with leaflet she was arrested for
distributing at Earth Summit
(from Greenpeace site)

Extracts from ECO 6, 2 Sept 2002

Full Text: < www.greenpeace.org/multimedia/download/1/24639/0/issue_six_with_insertb.pdf >

Congratulations to Norway, Switzerland, Hungary, St. Lucia (CARICOM), Tuvalu, and, especially, Ethiopia (and, yes, the G77 + China and the EU too) for eliminating that abhorrent "WTO consistency" text.

BIODIVERSITY

The agreed text on biodiversity is weaker than the language "have instruments in place to stop and reverse the current alarming biodiversity loss… by the year 2010" adopted by the same ministers in April 2002 at the 6th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. At a minimum, governments should re-commit to what they agreed to only six months ago. However, the text still refers to a target, and with the US accepting this, it would seem a logical next step for them to ratify the convention. The paragraph on access and benefit- sharing may represent a positive step as long as the role of the WTO in the "Means of implementation" does not interfere with the negotiations called for in this paragraph.

The agreement on rebuilding fish stocks (paragraph 30 (a)) may well undermine the past 10 years of international agreements on sustainable fisheries and the protection of marine biodiversity, in particular the 1995 UN Fish Stocks Agreement. It also appears to treat the minimal obligations for fisheries conservation in the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea as being merely voluntary, and only to be implemented by 2015 "where possible". The setting of a date to rebuild the world's fisheries and marine ecosystems is a laudable goal, but the target chosen to rebuild fish stocks, "maximum sustainable yield", almost guarantees the continued depletion of the world's fisheries and marine biodiversity.

At the same time there is good text calling for the elimination of subsidies that contribute to illegal and unregulated fishing and excess fishing capacity and for the development and use of the ecosystem approach and networks of marine protected areas to protect biodiversity in the marine environment.

AGRICULTURE

While the agreed text acknowledges that agriculture is inextricably linked to poverty eradication, that's where it ends. It does not sufficiently recognize the scope and scale of challenges facing current agricultural production systems, either environmental or social. It contains no action plan to ensure that agricultural production systems are transformed to become vehicles for food security, environmental sustainability, or poverty reduction. It contains no commitments to provide new resources to combat declining levels of public support for agriculture transformation.

Finally, the Summit has dropped positive references from Bali to support new and emerging opportunities to diversify and develop agricultural niche markets (i.e. fair trade and organic) - arguably the best examples of sustainable agriculture around. Finally, the text does not define sustainable agriculture so as to address the question of GM crops, leaving open the possibility that the precautionary principle is undermined, and GM crops considered "sustainable" solutions for poverty and environmental degradation… All in all, a poor showing, and hardly Summitworthy.

TRADE AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Scrap the text and start again! Eco has consistently held that governments must recognise that globalised market liberalisation does not lead to equitable, just or environmentally sustainable development. Economies must be managed as a tool to achieve sustainable development.

Sustainable development must circumscribe trade and WTO rules - not the other way around. Unless this relationship is clearly set out by the Summit, the legal precedent set will spell the demise of the Kyoto Protocol, the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol, the Stockholm POPs convention, and virtuually every other agreement in future. Not to mention the fact that WTO rules would continue to take precedence over sustainable livelihoods and human development.

CHEMICALS

The current draft has no reference to the precautionary principle, and the target date of 2020 refers to risk management, rather than the phase-out and elimination of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). This is clearly weaker than the POPs Treaty agreed in Stockholm last year.

Extracts from ECO 5, 30 August 2002

MIDSUMMIT REPORT

[Extracts]

Full Report: < http://www.greenpeace.org/multimedia/download/1/23906/0/issue_five_with_insert.pdf >

The spirit of Rio certainly does NOT live on in Joburg. The legally binding conventions agreed ten years ago contain more substantive language on principles than the non binding draft Johannesburg Implementation Plan. Sad but true.

Governments need to re-read agreements they have already signed up to- hopefully before they head back into the negotiating sessions.

Biodiversity: Down the Drain?

The CBD was one of the three international framework Conventions signed at Rio in 1992. It has been ratified by 185 countries, most, if not all, present here. Commitments made by party states to this Convention include:

The Precautionary Principle is included in the Convention on Biological Diversity and its related Protocol on Biosafety. The Protocol develops the principle in this case to facilitate implementation by stating that, "Lack of scientific certainty due to insufficient relevant scientific information and knowledge regarding the extent of the potential adverse effects of a living modified organism on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity in the Party of import…shall not prevent that Party from taking a decision…in order to avoid or minimize such potential adverse effects." In spite of this, the current bracketed text includes waffle words such as, "[based on sound science, risk assessment and principle 15 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development [and other [relevant] international instruments]]. The bracketed text in paragraph 23 is the same as the CBD.

The 2000 Conference of Parties in Nairobi adopted the ecosystem approach as the primary framework for action under the Convention. In paragraph 23 of the WSSD text, the bureaucrats' here have bracketed the ecosystem approach. Have 185 countries been overruled?

Negotiators Trading away Precaution?

At the 1992 Earth Summit, the Precautionary Principle was adopted in Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration, bringing to the global stage an emerging paradigm shift. Following Rio, a number of conventions and other soft law agreements incorporated the precautionary approach into their provisions, and still other agreements were actually negotiated on a precautionary basis, including the Climate Change Convention. Precaution is embedded in a growing number of legally binding international agreements, involving toxic chemicals, fisheries, climate, fish stocks and biodiversity.

However, at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, where precaution should be at the very heart of agreements-including with respect to natural resources, chemicals and trade- governments are trading this principle away.

Precaution was a part of Rio. This is an implementation conference. When do we get to implementation?

But There's Been No Back- Sliding on Trade!

The latest draft Means of Implementation text on Trade and Finance mentions:

4"The Doha work programme" 22 times.

4 "In a manner consistent with WTO rights and obligations" three times ( in crucial places!)

4"Public-private" 14 times.

In sharp contrast, where are the earlier references to:

4Promoting initiatives to ensure coherence between the rules of the multilateral trading system and multilateral environmental agreements "consistent with the goals of sustainable development." (see Bali text para. 122 (c))?

4Apply "in decision-making" the precautionary principle as established in the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development "and further developed in international law in order to protect health and environment." (see Bali text para. 45 (e) alt.)?

4An "international mechanism" to stabilise commodity prices for coping with the instability of commodity prices and declining terms of trade (see Bali text para. 82)?

Extracts from ECO 3, 28 Aug 2002

The Perils of Setting a Biodiversity Target

After Monday's lengthy discussions on the importance of biodiversity, based on the useful WEHAB paper on the topic, it may come as a surprise that the only meaningful implementation target on the issue is in deep trouble.

And the trouble is coming from a surprising source. Even the US, famously recalcitrant on many other targets, has indicated its willingness to accept the goal of reversing the current decline in biodiversity by the year 2010.

But now the G-77, which of course includes the most megadiverse nations, is having second thoughts. The group has offered an alternative biodiversity text that eliminates any notion of reversing the decline of biodiversity entirely, and has also questioned the ecosystem approach. This is all ironic on three accounts: the same countries have of course accepted the goal and the approach in the CBD itself, and the ecosystems approach is essential for poverty alleviation.

Some explanation is called for. It appears a number of countries are concerned that the financial boon they hoped would issue from the CBD's access and benefit sharing provisions has not, in fact, occurred. Perhaps they are waiting to see what efforts, in addition to the recent decision to increase the Global Environment Fund replenishment, the rich countries are willing to put forward.

But blocking a target on these grounds will ultimately be self-defeating, because without a specific goal, the effort to mobilize financial resources for biodiversity conservation will be even harder.

There is a ray of hope, however. In late night discussions of the natural resources chapeau, the EU, displaying the kind of determination we'd dearly like to see on other issues, has defended both a biodiversity target and the ecosystem approach. So it's still possible that the heads of state of the world's most megadiverse countries will not, at the end of the day, have to explain the extinction of the WSSD's only real biodiversity target.

EU-US: Sleeping With the Enemy?

There is more about this Summit that is reminiscent of Seattle than the circling helicopters and search-lights. Increasingly, it seems, we are negotiating a trade text, with other issues relegated to the periphery. Are environmental and poverty reduction interests once again being hijacked by the short-term demands of trade ministries and special- interest lobbyists?

As reported in Monday's Eco, the US Trade Representative and EU DG Trade cooked up a closed-room deal a few weeks ago. Many delegates (including G77 and European environment ministry officials) negotiating in good faith didn't realize that the text they were first presented over the weekend was underpinned by this deal. This is supposedly the first ever multi-stakeholder Summit. And yet the single most important document generated in the run up to the Summit is a secret paper negotiated behind closed doors! Remember the attempt by US and EU trade officials to subvert the development of a biosafety protocol in Seattle - through the establishment of a Biotechnology Working Group in the WTO.

The poor understanding of and disinterest in trade officials of sustainable development issues was striking in Doha. Here it threatens to strike a heavier blow. It could result in an action plan for poverty reduction and environmental conservation that leaves MEAs at the mercy of the WTO and rich countries free to subsidise unsustainable production and consumption - with devastating consequences for the poor. The deadlock resulting from the apparent EU-US pre-agreement has prompted the erosion of some of the best remaining text since Bali; the G-77 and the new EC-US bloc are now reduced to trading amongst one another their responsibilities to the environment and the poor. Language to cut environmentally harmful subsidies is dropped in return for removal of language in support of biodiversity conservation, for example. This rift between the sustainable development and trade agendas was only too apparent in Seattle. Once again, we are witnessing a widening gap - ironically, through t he negotiation of a text at a World Summit on Sustainable Development.

The EU-US alliance here in Joburg is weird considering that Washington appears to be on the brink of war -a new trade war with Europe. Announcing the opening salvo, the UK's Independent on Sunday (25 August 2002) reports that "…US trade representative, Robert Zoellick, is putting in a complaint to the World Trade Organisation claiming that the EU moratorium on GM imports and crop-testing is a restraint of trade. His action is being backed by Monsanto, the US biotechnology group that has been at the centre of the development of GM crops."

This news brings us back to an issue at this summit: the relationship between trade and environmental rules. Since its creation two years after Rio, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has been used to challenge the right of any country to take measures to protect its environment and its people. When a country feels threatened economically by a trade-restricting measure of another country, it may request a legally binding ruling by a WTO dispute settlement panel. The trouble is that WTO dispute settlement panels do not have competence on environmental issues, especially concerning the decision-making importance of the precautionary principle - the science-based approach enshrined in Principle 15. The threat of WTO sanctions against environmental measures also has had a so-called chilling effect on the development and ratification of major environmental agreements, most notably the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and the Biosafety Protocol on GMOs.

Since the GM food controversy received attention and public concern in the mid- 1990s, the WTO has been one of the main weapons used by the US to fight GM crops and food having a special regulatory treatment. In February 1999, the US together, with Canada and Australia, formed a cartel of grain-producing countries known as the Miami Group to prevent the adoption of the Biosafety Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity. Their goal was to prevent, with threats of WTO sanctions, the adoption of a protocol recognising the right of any country to say no to GMOs on the basis of the precautionary principle. They managed to delay the adoption of the Biosafety protocol, and tried instead to create a WTO working party in Seattle. The tactic sank together with the Seattle conference, and the Biosafety protocol was adopted eight weeks later at a meeting in Montreal in January 2000. The US (which is still not a party to the CBD, and therefore is not entitled to sign its Biosafety Pro tocol) continues to undermine this instrument.

As an example, when Sri Lanka decided in 2001 to ban GMOs in food and agriculture in order to protect its biodiversity and competitiveness in world markets (given the increasing consumer demand for GM-free food), the US Embassy in Colombo threatened with economic retaliations, including a WTO dispute settlement panel. The thought of being condemned by the WTO and having to pay a fine for compensation is scary for a small country like Sri Lankan, and the Sri Lankan parliament was forced to "suspend" the law against GMOs.

A dispute against the EU takes more effort, even for the US. The news of this new US-EU trade war should trigger a reconsideration of the EU position at this summit. The US has already proven a false friend with steel tariffs. While the EU and the US plot together to impose the WTO agenda here in Joburg, the Bush administration is plotting against the EU behind its back. If it wants to protects itself against the arbitrary nature of the US, the EU would be better off proposing here in Johannesburg that negotiations on trade and the environment take place under the aegis of the UN ECOSOC, and not within the WTO where there is an obvious bias against sustainability and environmental measures.

World Summit on Sustainable Development

Draft Plan of Implementation for the World Summit on Sustainable Development

Extracts (paras 23 - Protecting and managing the natural resource base of economic and social development; 38 - Agriculture; & 42 - Biodiversity) from:

Note the lack of explicit linkages between Agriculture, Biodiversity and the Precautionary Principle. This leaves the door wide open for imposition of Genetic Engineering for 'Sustainable Development'.

Also See: Bali Prep Comm IV

NB the following sub-paras:

Precautionary Principle
23 Human activities are having an increasing impact on the integrity of ecosystems that provide essential resources and services for human well-being and economic activities. [As the natural resource base is vital for sustainable development, the current trend in loss of natural resources must be halted and reversed, where appropriate, at global and national levels by 2015.]/[Managing the natural resources base in a sustainable and integrated manner is essential for sustainable development.] In this regard, it is necessary to implement strategies [which apply the precautionary principle] [based on an ecosystem approach] to protect all [types of]/[classes of] ecosystems and to achieve integrated management of land, water and living resources, while strengthening regional, national and local capacities. [Concerns related to the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources should be integrated in all sectoral policies, strategies and programmes as well as in sustainable development strategies or, where applicable, poverty reduction strategies. Relevant existing environmental agreements and related instruments should be implemented fully and in a coherent manner.]

38 (r) [Agreed] Invite countries that have not done so to ratify the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture;

42 (q) [Agreed] Promote practicable measures for access to the results and benefits arising from biotechnologies based upon genetic resources, in accordance with articles 15 and 19 of the CBD, including through enhanced scientific and technical cooperation on biotechnology and biosafety, including the exchange of experts, training human resources and developing research oriented institutional capacities;

42 (t) [Agreed] Invite all states, which have not already done so, to ratify the CBD, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and other biodiversity-related agreements, and for those that have done so, promote their effective implementation at the national, regional and international levels and support developing countries, as well as countries with economies in transition, technically and financially in this regard.

ADVANCE UNEDITED TEXT 12 June 2002

38. [Agreed] Agriculture plays a crucial role in addressing the needs of a growing global population, and is inextricably linked to poverty eradication, especially in developing countries. Enhancing the role of women at all levels and in all aspects of rural development, agriculture, nutrition and food security is imperative. Sustainable agriculture and rural development are essential to the implementation of an integrated approach to increasing food production and enhancing food security and food safety in an environmentally sustainable way. This would include actions at all levels to:

(a) [Agreed] Achieve the Millennium Declaration target to halve by the year 2015, the proportion of the world's people who suffer from hunger and realize the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of themselves and their families, including food, including by, promoting food security and fighting hunger in combination with measures which address poverty, consistent with the outcome of the World Food Summit and, for State Parties, with their obligations under Article 11 of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

(b) [Agreed] Develop and implement integrated land management and water-use plans that are based on sustainable use of renewable resources and on integrated assessments of socio-economic and environmental potentials, and strengthen the capacity of Governments, local authorities and communities to monitor and manage the quantity and quality of land and water resources;

(c) [Agreed] Increase understanding of the sustainable use, protection and management of water resources to advance long-term sustainability of freshwater, coastal and marine environments;

(d) [Agreed] Promote programmes to enhance in a sustainable manner the productivity of land and the efficient use of water resources in agriculture, forestry, wetlands, artisanal fisheries and aquaculture, especially through indigenous and local community-based approaches;

(e) [Agreed] Support efforts of developing countries to protect oases from silt, land degradation and increasing salinity by providing appropriate technical and financial assistance;

(f) [Agreed] Enhance the participation of women in all aspects and at all levels relating to sustainable agriculture and food security;

(g) [Agreed] Integrate existing information systems on land-use practices by strengthening national research and extension services and farmer organizations to trigger farmer-to-farmer exchange on good practices, such as those related to environmentally sound, low-cost technologies, with the assistance of relevant international organizations;

(h) [Agreed] Enact, as appropriate, measures that protect indigenous resource management systems and support the contribution of all appropriate stakeholders, men and women alike, in rural planning and development;

(i) [Agreed] Adopt policies and implement laws that guarantee well defined and enforceable land and water use rights, and promote legal security of tenure, recognizing the existence of different national laws and/or systems of land access and tenure, and provide technical and financial assistance to developing countries as well as countries with economies in transition that are undertaking land tenure reform in order to enhance sustainable livelihoods;

(j) [Agreed] Reverse the declining trend in public sector finance for sustainable agriculture, provide appropriate technical and financial assistance, and promote private sector investment and support efforts in developing countries and countries with economies in transition to strengthen agricultural research and natural resource management capacity and dissemination of research results to the farming communities;

(k) [Agreed] Employ market-based incentives for agricultural enterprises and farmers to monitor and manage water use and quality, inter alia by applying such methods as small-scale irrigation and wastewater recycling and reuse;

(l) [Agreed] Enhance access to existing markets and develop new markets for value-added agricultural products;

(m) [Achieve substantial improvements in market access; reductions of, with a view to phasing out, all forms of export subsidies; and substantial reductions in trade distorting domestic support for agricultural products;]

(n) [Agreed] Increase brown-field redevelopment in developed countries and countries with economies in transition, with appropriate technical assistance where contamination is a serious problem;

(o) Enhance international cooperation to combat illicit [use of]/[drug] crops, taking into account their negative social, economic and environmental impacts and the need for countries strongly committed to combating cultivation of these crops to gain enhanced access to international markets for regular goods in order to help them to cope with the substantial economic loss such illicit crops engender;

(p) [Agreed] Promote programmes for the environmentally sound, effective and efficient use of soil fertility improvement practices and agricultural pest control;

(q) [Agreed] Strengthen and improve coordination of existing initiatives to enhance sustainable agricultural production and food security;

(r) [Agreed] Invite countries that have not done so to ratify the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture;

(s) [Agreed] Promote the conservation, and sustainable use and management of traditional and indigenous agricultural systems and strengthen indigenous models of agricultural production.

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42. Biodiversity, which plays a critical role in overall sustainable development and poverty eradication, is essential to our planet, human well-being and to the livelihood and cultural integrity of people. However, biodiversity is presently being lost at unprecedented rates due to human activities; this trend can only be reversed if the local people benefit from the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, in particular in countries of origin of genetic resources, in accordance with Article 15 of the CBD. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is the key instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from use of genetic resources. [Achieving a significant reduction in the current rate of biodiversity loss [by 2010] includes actions at all levels to]/[With a view to having instruments in place to stop the current alarming biodiversity loss [by 2010], actions are required at all levels to]:

(a) [Agreed] Integrate the objectives of the CBD into global, regional and national sectoral and cross-sectoral programmes and policies, in particular in the programmes and policies of the economic sectors of countries and international financial institutions;

(b) [Agreed] Promote the ongoing work under the CBD on the sustainable use on biological diversity, including on sustainable tourism, as a cross-cutting issue relevant to different ecosystems, sectors and thematic areas;

(c) [Agreed] Encourage effective synergies between the CBD and other multilateral environmental agreements, inter alia, through the development of joint plans and programmes, with due regard to their respective mandates, regarding common responsibilities and concerns;

(d) [Agreed] Implement the CBD and its provisions, including active follow-up of its work programmes and decisions through national, regional and global action programmes, in particular the national biodiversity strategies and action plans, and strengthen their integration into relevant cross-sectoral strategies, programmes and policies, including those related to sustainable development and poverty eradication, including initiatives which promote community-based sustainable use of biological diversity;

(e) [Agreed] Promote the wide implementation and further development of the ecosystem approach, as being elaborated in the on-going work of the CBD;

(f) [Agreed] Promote concrete international support and partnership for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, including in ecosystems, World Heritage sites and for the protection of endangered species, in particular through the appropriate channelling of financial resources and technology to developing countries, as well as to countries with economies in transition;

(g) [Agreed] To effectively conserve and sustainably use biodiversity, promote and support initiatives for hot spot areas and other areas essential for biodiversity and promote the development of national and regional ecological networks and corridors;

(h) [Agreed] Provide financial and technical support to developing countries, including capacity building, in order to enhance indigenous and community based biodiversity conservation efforts;

(i) [Agreed] Strengthen national, regional and international efforts to control invasive alien species, which are one of the main causes of biodiversity loss, and encourage the development of effective work programme on invasive alien species at all levels;

(j) [Agreed] Subject to national legislation, recognize the rights of local and indigenous communities who are holders of traditional knowledge, innovations and practices, and, with the approval and involvement of the holders of such knowledge, innovations and practices, develop and implement benefit-sharing mechanisms on mutually agreed terms for the use of such knowledge, innovations and practices;

(k) [Agreed] Encourage and enable all stakeholders to contribute to the implementation of the objectives of the CBD and recognize in particular the specific role of youth, women and indigenous and local communities in conserving and using biodiversity in a sustainable way;

(l) [Agreed] Promote the effective participation of indigenous and local communities in decision and policy making concerning the use of their traditional knowledge;

(m) [Agreed] Encourage technical and financial support to developing countries, as well as countries with economies in transition, in their efforts to develop and implement, as appropriate, inter alia, national sui generis systems and traditional systems according to national priorities and legislation, with a view to conserving and sustainable use of biodiversity;

(n) [Agreed] Promote the wide implementation of and continued work on the Bonn Guidelines on Access to Genetic Resources and Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising out of their Utilization of the CBD, as an input to assist Parties when developing and drafting legislative, administrative or policy measures on access and benefit-sharing, and contract and other arrangements under mutually agreed terms for access and benefit-sharing;

(o) [Negotiate the creation of an international regime to effectively promote and safeguard the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of biodiversity and its components;]

(p) [Agreed] Encourage successful conclusion of existing processes under the World Intellectual Property Organization Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore, and in the ad hoc open-ended working group on article 8 (j) and related provisions of the CBD;

(q) [Agreed] Promote practicable measures for access to the results and benefits arising from biotechnologies based upon genetic resources, in accordance with articles 15 and 19 of the CBD, including through enhanced scientific and technical cooperation on biotechnology and biosafety, including the exchange of experts, training human resources and developing research oriented institutional capacities;

(r) [Agreed] With a view to enhancing synergy and mutual supportiveness, taking into account the decisions under the relevant agreements, promote the discussions, without prejudging their outcome, with regard to the relationships between the obligations of the CBD and of agreements related to international trade and intellectual property rights, as outlined in the Doha Ministerial Declaration;

(s) [Agreed] Promote the implementation of the programme of work of the Global Taxonomy Initiative;

(t) [Agreed] Invite all states, which have not already done so, to ratify the CBD, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and other biodiversity-related agreements, and for those that have done so, promote their effective implementation at the national, regional and international levels and support developing countries, as well as countries with economies in transition, technically and financially in this regard.

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