Stoianoff (law, University of Wollongong, Australia) collects contributions from lawyers, scientists, and policy makers on issues related to the use of biological and genetic resources for commercial and scientific purposes. While emphasis is on the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Interna.

The book aims to address the lack of information on the experiences of others by providing a comparative analysis of national access and benefit-sharing laws and policies in the 41 Pacific Rim countries that signed the CBD. It provides key insights on the main characteristics of selected access and benefit-sharing (ABS) policies and laws, their development, and implementation process. It contains a detailed comparative analysis of existing laws and policies. It presents four case studies of countries with regulations in place and contrasts them with four case studies of countries that are struggling to develop their regulations. It ends by discussing options of an international regime on ABS and a summary analysis of the main lessons and recommendations from the study.

Biodiversity is the base and source of most of the developmental activities. With the advent of modern biotechnology, the utilization of biological and genetic resources for various developmental ventures in medicine, health products, cosmetics, and industrial products increased manifold. Ever since the Convention on Biological Diversity rolled out a blueprint for conservation of biological diversity, sustainable use of its components and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of utilization of genetic resources and traditional knowledge, the Parties to the Convention recognized them as cardinal principles for sustainable development that depends on biological diversity. The Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing for Utilization of Genetic resources and Traditional Knowledge concretized the legal mandate for facilitated access to genetic resources and traditional knowledge for research and developmental purposes. The Protocol ensured equitable sharing of benefits to the indigenous and local communities that have shared traditional knowledge and contributed for the conservation of biological diversity. Being a party to the Convention on Biological Diversity as well as the Nagoya Protocol, India has been implementing the Convention and the Protocol through the Biological Diversity Act, 2002. The Biological Diversity Act, 2002 provides facilitated access to biological resources and associated knowledge based on prior approval and mutually agreed terms. Even though both the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol use the terms “genetic resources,” the Indian Biological Diversity Act regulates “biological resources.” This gives a broader scope to the regulation and benefit sharing. A three tier-mechanism has been created under the Act to regulate access to biological resources and associated knowledge and to ensure benefit sharing. The National Biodiversity Authority at the federal level provides prior approval to the non-Indian entities for research and commercial utilization of biological resources. This Authority also regulates transfer of research results and transfer of accessed biological resource to a third party. Any application for intellectual property protection for any product or process involving biological resources requires prior approval of the National Biodiversity Authority. The State Biodiversity Boards established in the States regulate access to biological resources by the Indian citizens at the state level. Both the National Biodiversity Authority and the State Biodiversity Boards determine benefit sharing at the time of granting approval. However, the State Biodiversity Boards do not have any clear mandate under the Act to accord approval and fix benefit sharing. This issue has been raised in the case of Divya Pharmacy v. Union of India (2018). The Biodiversity Management Committees established at the grassroots level in the local bodies have major duties of conservation and documentation of biodiversity and the associated knowledge available within its jurisdiction. These Committees also have the power to levy access fees from the persons accessing biological resources within its jurisdiction. The Biological Diversity Rules 2004, and the Access and Benefit Sharing Regulations 2014 aid the implementation of Biological Diversity Act. Nevertheless, the implementation of the Biological Diversity Act has been entangled with multiple challenges due to convoluted procedures, different enforcement approaches of State Biodiversity Boards and lack of clarity in the law itself. Hesitation of industry stakeholders to comply with the law and lack of participation and awareness about the access and benefit sharing process on the part of the local communities add the complexity to the implementation of the law. All these issues not only pose threat to the implementation of biodiversity law, but also threat to conservation and sustainable development. This paper will critically analyze the importance of conservation of biological diversity and sustainable use of biological resources globally and in a developing country like India to further sustainable development. It will shed light on the difficulties in implementing the biodiversity law in India. This paper will also examine how access and benefit sharing regime in India impacts research and innovation for sustainable development and how it benefits biodiversity conservation and local communities with the help of case studies.

There has been a deliberative, but as yet unsuccessful, attempt by scholars and policy makers to articulate a more meaningful idea of Europe, which would enhance the legitimacy of the European Union and provide the basis for a European identity. Using a detailed analysis of the writings of Nietzsche, Elbe seeks to address this problem and argues that Nietzsche's thinking about Europe can significantly illuminate our understanding. He demonstrates how Nietzsche's critique of nationalism and the notion of the 'good European' can assist contemporary scholars in the quest for a vision of Europe and a definition of what it means to be a European citizen.

Addressing the management of genetic resources, this book offers a new assessment of the contemporary Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) regime. Debates about ABS have moved on. The initial focus on the legal obligations established by international agreements like the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and the form of obligations for collecting physical biological materials have now shifted into a far more complex series of disputes and challenges about the ways ABS should be implemented and enforced. These now cover a wide range of issues, including: digital sequence information, the repatriation of resources, technology transfer, traditional knowledge and cultural expressions, open access to information and knowledge, naming conventions, farmers’ rights, new schemes for accessing pandemic viruses sharing DNA sequences, and so on. Drawing together perspectives from an interdisciplinary range of leading and emerging international scholars, this book offers a new approach to the ABS landscape; as it breaks from the standard regulatory analyses in order to explore alternative solutions to the intractable issues for the Access and Benefit Sharing of genetic resources. Addressing these modern legal debates from a perspective that will appeal to both ABS scholars and those with broader legal concerns in the areas of intellectual property, food, governance, Indigenous issues, and so on, this book will be a useful resource for scholars and students as well as those in government and in international institutions working in relevant areas.

Interest in the commercial value of genetic and biochemical resources is burgeoning. Virtually no precedent exists for policies and legislation to govern and regulate what amounts to a brand new industry. This report provides guidelines for establishing policies for biodiversity prospecting.