ENVIRONMENT: The Pending Question of International Biosecurity

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 15 1996 (IPS) - What happens if a corn kernel whose genetic structure has been modified in Argentina to increase its resistance to pests is introduced into France, where it alters the environment?

This question presents just one example among millions of possible cases of cross-border movement of live organisms modified in laboratories, which can have a negative impact on a new environment — or on human health, if the seed is mixed with a gene extracted from a bacteria, for example.

On Friday, the two week-long Third Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity ended in Buenos Aires with an urgent call for the preparation of an international Protocol on Biosecurity.

The Convention on biodiversity stipulates that the signatory nations must have the means by which to regulate, administer and control the risks derived from the use and release of modified live organisms, which are likely to have adverse environmental repercussions on the conservation of biodiversity, and also present risks to human health.

The Convention states that the Parties must come up with a protocol that outlines the correct procedures for the transfer, manipulation and use of modified live organisms.

During the Second Conference of the Parties, held in Indonesia in 1995, the signatories decided that a committee would be created to draw up the protocol on biosecurity. A year later, the Third Conference stipulated that the committee would be permanent and that it would begin to meet in May 1997, in spite of the sense of urgency surrounding the question.

The signatories contend that biotechnology can contribute to the sustainable use of biological diversity as long as it is used in a rational manner. They thus set a 1998 deadline for the committee to come up with a draft of the Protocol on Biosecurity.

Few countries today apply internal controls for the commercial use of species obtained through genetic engineering. The majority are industrialised nations.

At the request of the signatories, the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) drew up a list of security guidelines to apply to biotechnology, to serve as a transitory tool until the international protocol is prepared and approved.

But UNEP warned that no norm can guarantee security in the research, development and application of biotechnology if it is not accompanied by the transfer of technical and financial support to developing countries where such programmes are to be carried out.

So far, the UNEP recommendations have turned out to be useful for many countries as guidelines for domestic health standards and for monitoring the negative environmental impact of modified crops within the country’s own borders.

In some cases, the controls are implemented through laws regulating the modification of live organisms, and in others through non-governmental organisations or groups of experts that evaluate the risks and environmental impact.

But the signatories have recognised the urgent need for an international protocol regulating cross-border movement of modified live organisms, which will be the first protocol to come out of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The protocol is to establish an international legal framework permitting verification and evaluation of environmental risks posed by the introduction of a modified organism into a country with an ecosystem that differs from its country of origin.

It must also provide a procedure through which a country would grant prior consent to the introduction of the live organism, after evaluating the risks to its biological diversity.

But by the close of the Third Conference of the Parties, the Protocol on Biosecurity remained a good intention not yet translated onto paper. It is hoped that by the Fourth Conference, to take place in Montreal, Canada in 1998, the experts will have come up with a document that adequately responds to the concerns.