Study for the implementation in Belgium of the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit‐sharing to the Convention on Biological Diversity

Summary

General recommendations

• Both Prior Informed Consent and benefit‐sharing should be implemented as general legal principles in Belgium.
• A phased approach should be adopted for the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol, allowing to benefit from the implementation of the basic principles in a timely manner and to deal with more fine‐grained choices at a later stage.

Specific recommendations

• Alongside the designation of Competent National Authorities (CNAs), a centralized input system to the CNAs should be established.
• With regard to compliance measures, sanctions should be provided for cases of non‐compliance with PIC and MAT requirements set out by the provider country. When checking content of MAT, a provision in the code of international private law should provide for reference to provider country legislation, with Belgian law as a fallback option.
• At this stage of the implementation, the monitoring of the utilization of genetic resources and traditional knowledge by a checkpoint should be done on the basis of the PIC available in the ABS Clearing‐House.
• With regard to access to Belgian genetic resources, it is recommended to refine the existing legislation relevant for protected areas and protected species, combined with a general notification requirement for access to other genetic resources. Later stages of implementation can then include refinement of additional relevant legislation as well as having ex‐situ collections process the other access requests.
• At this stage of the implementation, and apart from the general obligation to share benefits, no specific benefit‐sharing requirements should be imposed for the Mutually Agreed Terms. A combination of more specific requirements, including the possibility to use standard agreements, can be considered in a later stage of the implementation.
• The Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences should be mandated to fulfill the information sharing tasks on Access and Benefit Sharing under the Nagoya Protocol, through the ABS Clearing‐House.