Legal Aspects of Implementing the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety

Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger is Director of the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL) in Montreal, Canada, Affiliated Fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law (LCIL) at Cambridge University and head of the Environment and Sustainable Development Law Program of the International Development Law Organisation (IDLO) in Rome, Italy. She serves as a Visiting Professor at the University of Chile Faculty of Law, as co-editor of the Treaty Implementation for Sustainable Development series for Cambridge University Press and as Senior Research Director for Sustainable Prosperity, a policy research network on the Green Economy. She has authored or edited more than eighty publications, including fourteen books in three languages such as: Sustainable Development in World Investment Law (2010) and Sustainable Development in World Trade Law (2005) with Dr M. Gehring; Sustainable Development Law: Principles, Practices and Prospects (2004) with A. Khalfan; and Sustainable Justice: Reconciling Economic, Social and Environmental Law (2004) with H. E. Judge C. G. Weeramantry. Frederic Perron-Welch is Programme Coordinator of the CISDL Sustainable Biodiversity and Biosafety Law Research Programme in Montreal, Canada. He holds a Certificate of Specialization in Environmental Law from the Marine and Environmental Law Institute at Dalhousie University and has represented the CISDL at numerous meetings of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). He interned with the Biosafety Division of the CBD in 2009 and has worked with environmental NGOs throughout Canada, including Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA), East Coast Environmental Law Association (ECELAW), Canadian Environmental Network - Reseau canadien de l'environnement (RCEN), Canada Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre and the Living Oceans Society. Christine Frison is a Legal Research Fellow with the CISDL Sustainable Biodiversity and Biosafety Law Programme and a lawyer specializing in biodiversity, agro-biodiversity and biosafety issues. She currently conducts a joint Ph.D. research programme as an affiliated junior researcher at the Centre for Intellectual Property Rights (University of Leuven - KU Leuven, Belgium) and at the Centre for Philosophy of Law (University of Louvain - UC Louvain, Belgium). She served as a legal adviser to the Belgian Federal Ministry of Environment between 2006 and 2009, where she remains a member of the Belgian Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) Contact Group. She carries out consultancy contracts for various international organizations (including the United Nations Environment Programme and Bioversity International), university research centers and NGOs. She has authored a number of publications and is the main editor for Plant Genetic Resources and Food Security: Stakeholder Perspectives on the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (2011) with J. T. Esquinas-Alcazar and F. Lopez.

Discusses key issues under the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety that affect the further design of national and international law on biosafety.

Part I. Essentials of Biosafety and Sustainable Development Law: 1. Biosafety, the Cartagena Protocol, and sustainable development Kathryn Garforth, Worku Damena Yifru and Mai Fujii; 2. Implementing sustainable development through national biosafety frameworks Christine Frison, Sylvestre-José-Tidiane Manga and Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger; 3. Crafting national biosafety regulatory systems Gregory Jaffe; Part II. Sustainable Development Law and Policy on Biosafety: 4. Risk assessment and risk management Ryan Hill; 5. The decision-making procedures of the protocol Worku Damena Yifru, Mai Fujii and Kathryn Garforth; 6. Handling, transport, packaging and information Thomas Redick; 7. The question of public participation Christine Toczeck Skarlatakis and Julian Kinderlerer; 8. The biosafety clearing-house and sustainable development law Frederic Perron-Welch; 9. Use of the biosafety clearing house in practice Tomme Rosanne Young; 10. Socio-economics, biosafety and sustainable development Frederic Perron-Welch; 11. The compliance mechanism: development, adoption, content and first years of life Veit Koester; 12. Biosafety, liability and sustainable development Frederic Perron-Welch and Olivier Rukundo; Part III. National Implementation of Biosafety Regulatory Aspects: 13. Legislative options for national implementation Tomme Rosanne Young; 14. National biosafety regulatory systems in Central and Eastern Europe David Duthie and Liina Eek; 15. Implementing the Cartagena Protocol in West Africa: national and regional activities Gregory Jaffe and Papa Meissa Dieng; 16. Comparative analysis of the national biosafety regulatory systems in East Africa Gregory Jaffe; 17. The national biosafety regulatory systems in Asian and Near East countries Nizar Mohamed; 18. The regulatory and institutional biosafety systems in the Americas Jorge Cabrera Medaglia; 19. National experiences with legislative implementation of the protocol Tomme Rosanne Young; 20. The Costa Rican legal framework on agricultural genetically modified organisms Jorge Cabrera Medaglia; 21. Innovations in biosafety law in New Zealand Frederic Perron-Welch; 22. Liability and redress in Canadian case law: Hoffman v. Monsanto Canada Inc. Kathryn Garforth and Paige Ainslie; 23. The use of GMOs in Chile and the protection of indigenous culture Konstantia Koutouki and Paula Honorato Marin; Part V. Global Policy Trends in Biosafety: 24. Sustainable development, biosafety and international law Frederic Perron-Welch, Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, Christine Frison and Jorge Cabrera Medaglia; 25. Trade and investment implications of implementing the Cartagena Protocol Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger and Markus Gehring; 26. The Cartagena Protocol and the regulation of genetically modified food aid Martin Endicot.