The Nagoya Protocol: Sustainable Access and Benefits-Sharing for Indigenous and Local Communities
Dr. Konstantia Koutouki, Katharina von Bieberstein, Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, Volume 13 (2011-2012)
Part of the success of international sustainable development law globally can be attributed to indigenous peoples and their persistent calls for international legal instruments that provide protection for the natural environment and consider biodiversity as more than an economic resource but also as a necessity for life on earth and as central to many cultural and spiritual rituals. One of the most successful legal instruments for sustainable development is the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), one of few that explicitly mentions indigenous peoples and the importance of their traditional ecological knowledge. For indigenous peoples, an important feature of the CBD was the notion of access to and benefits-sharing from genetic resources. It is not a coincidence that the vast majority of the world’s remaining biodiversity is located in areas populated by indigenous groups. The Nagoya Protocol was developed in response to the economic importance of genetic resources and was conceived to respond to the many criticisms of the Access and Benefits-Sharing (ABS) provisions in the CBD. Despite some success, indigenous peoples are still waiting for legal protection of the genetic resources that underlie their traditional knowledge and to share in the benefits therefrom. This paper examines the NP, focusing on how this protocol impacts indigenous peoples’ rights and, more specifically, addresses any further protection beyond that of the CBD that is afforded to indigenous peoples, local communities, and their sustainable traditional knowledge practices under international law.
Available for download here The-Nagoya-Protocol – VJEL 2012