The adoption of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2010 is a major landmark for the global governance of genetic resources and traditional knowledge. The way in which it will be translated into practice will however depend on the concrete implementation in national country legislation across the world. Implementing the Nagoya Protocol compares existing ABS regimes in ten European countries, including one non-EU member and one EU candidate country, and critically explores several cross-cutting issues related to the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol in the EU. Gathering some of the most professional and widely acclaimed experts in ABS issues, this book takes a major step towards filling a gap in the vast body of literature on national and regional implementation of global commitments regarding ABS and traditional knowledge.

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.

Foreword; Acknowledgements; List of Abbreviations; Table of Legal Materials Cited; Introduction; 1 The International Debate on Access and Benefit-sharing; 1.1 Asymmetries and the Ethical Rationale for ABS; 1.2 An Incentive-based Approach to Biodiversity Conservation and the Economic Rationale for ABS; 1.3 The ABS Provisions of the CBD; 2 From the CBD to the Nagoya Protocol via the Bonn Guidelines; 3 Traditional Knowledge and ABS; 4 Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities as Beneficiaries of the CBD and the Nagoya Protocol.