Biodiversity conference steps forward with historic genetic accord
(From The Japan Times November 2 issue)

COP10生物多様性で歴史的合意

After 12 days of tough talks between developed and developing countries, the COP10 biodiversity meeting in Nagoya on Oct. 30 adopted the Nagoya Protocol. The protocol covers access to genetic resources as well as the distribution of profits derived from the use of these resources. COP10 also established Aichi Targets to prevent biodiversity loss through 20 specific goals, including a call for conserving at least 17 percent of the world's terrestrial areas and inland water areas, and 10 percent of coastal and marine areas as biodiversity protection zones. The protocol will legally bind 193 parties to the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), adopted in 1992 along with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Although details must be worked out before COP11 is held in India in 2012, the protocol is an important, environmental-related, legally binding international accord that will protect and sustain biodiversity.

As COP10 chair, Japan will continue to chair CBD-related meetings until COP11. It should strive to ensure that the Nagoya Protocol will have concrete rules in place to equitably distribute the profits generated by pharmaceutical and biotech firms in developed countries to the developing countries that supply the genetic resources.

At COP10, developing countries first insisted that the protocol cover profits that were generated long before the CBD took effect in 1993, but eventually they compromised on this issue. The Nagoya Protocol says among other things that if a firm wants to gain access to genetic resources, it must get prior informed consent from the party that provides such resources. Japan and other CBD parties should work together to convince the United States, the largest user of genetic resources, to join the CBD. At home, Japan must quickly ratify the protocol and enact laws to implement the accords adopted in Nagoya.

生物多様性条約第10回締約国会議（COP10）は、遺伝資源の利用やそれによる利益配分の規定を定めた名古屋議定書と、生物保全を目的とした愛知ターゲットを採択した。後者は陸地17%と海域10%を保全地域にするなどの20項目を盛り込んでいる。

日本はCOP10議長国として、先進国の医薬品・バイオテクノロジー企業が遺伝資源利用による利益を原産国に公正に配分するために、議定書の具体的な規則を確実にする努力が求められる。

議定書は、遺伝資源を利用する企業は原産国の事前の同意を得なければならないと規定している。日本を含むCBD加盟国は、世界最大の遺伝資源利用国である米国に加盟を働きかけるべきだ。日本国内では名古屋議定書の早期批准を目指すとともに、諸協定を担保するための国内法を制定しなければならない。