SPROUTING UP: TRADE RUSH SUPERSEDES BIOSAFETY

The Convention of Biological Diversity's (CBD) working group on biosafety has had a rough ride since Rio.  Delegates heading to Cartagena de Indias in Colombia in February for the Sixth - and supposedly last - meeting of the group knew that they still had a long way to go to finalise an international Biosafety Protocol.  What few expected was that, after ten days and mostly sleepless nights of strenuous give-and-take, they would still not be able to approve the Protocol.  At the First Extraordinary Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD (ExCop, February 22-23) the United States and a few other countries, backed by the biotechnology industrial lobby, refused to prioritise environmental and social concerns over the free and unrestrained worldwide trade of Living Modified Organisms (LMOs).

The so-called Miami Group (led by the US, and supported by Canada, Australia, Argentina, Chile and Brazil) insisted in deleting language that would protect crop diversity, food safety and human health, while refusing to abide by the precautionary principle and forcing LMO producers and exporters to assume liability over the environmental, health or socioeconomic consequences of transgenic trade.  The group's position closely mirrored that of a global coalition of 2,200 transnationalorporations who were lobbying hard in Cartagena.

Facing up to the small Miami Group was the Like-Minded Group, a coalition of 130 African, Asian, some East European and most Latin American coutries. This group,  later joined by the European Union, compromised its position considerably and was willing to endorse a much watered-down final draft, which was still unacceptable to those backing biotech interests.  What the group was not willing to give up was: the inclusion in the Protocol of commodities, not just seeds (which would exclude 90% of LMO trade); the predominance - or at least parity - of the CBD over trade agreements; liability and inclusion of socioeconomic considerations; and the precautionary principle as a fundamental tenet of the Protocol.  As Tewolde Egziabher of the Ethiopian delegation said at the closing, "All agreed, all compromised, but for one small group of countries."

ExCop decided that negotiations will continue under the guidance of Colombian Environment Minster Juan Mayr, and will be concluded sometime before the Fifth Conference of the Parties, scheduled for May 2000.  If the CBD cannot heed the growing demand from people all over for controls over genetic engineering and its products, many countries and regional groups will soon be passing laws to stall the entry of unwanted LMOs, and at the same time monitoring events at the WTO so that biosafety concerns are not interpreted as 'restrictions to free trade.'

Sources: Several NGO delegates in Cartagena, press and the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, http://www.iisd.ca/linkages