Outcomes Statement from CBD CoP15 Biodiversity Law and Governance Day 2022

For a PDF version of this Outcomes Statement, please click here.

In collaboration with over 200 partners in the Biodiversity Law and Governance Initiative, we thank the Chinese Presidency of COP15, our generous Canadian and Quebec co-hosts, the distinguished delegates, observers and also the CBD Secretariat for the opportunity to share the outcomes and findings of the 2022 COP15 Biodiversity Law and Governance Day.

During CBD COP15, on the world’s Human Rights Day, the 10th of December 2022, Parties and Observers to the CBD and other biodiversity accords convened nearly 400 jurists, negotiators, law and policy makers, practitioners, indigenous and local leaders, stakeholders and scholars, to scale up law, policy and practice contributions to implementing the CBD regime and the coming Global Biodiversity Framework, advancing our world’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through legal and institutional measures. 

BIODIVERSITY LAW AND GOVERNANCE DAY 2022

On Saturday, 10 December, over 300 registrants from around the globe joined in Biodiversity Law and Governance Day (BLGD) 2022, which was held online and co-hosted by partners from the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law, McGill University, University of Montreal, University of Quebec a Montreal, University of Costa Rica, University of Cambridge, UNiversity of Kisangani, and others. BLGD 2022 focused the following 3 key themes:

• Advancing legal elements of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework;
• Enhancing nature-based solutions, sustainable use of natural resources and synergies with biodiversity and other treaties; and
• Strengthening the effectiveness of the Nagoya Protocol and addressing genetic information.

BLGD 2022 featured a grand opening, three high-level plenaries, and two substantive experts sessions addressing a wide range of pressing biodiversity law and governance challenges and solutions. To see the Full Programme for BLGD2022, please click here. BLGD2022 culminated in a celebration of the new laureates of the 2022 Biodiversity Law & Governance Global Leadership Awards. 

 OUTCOMES FROM BLGD 2022

Law and governance can be a powerful tool for our world’s biodiversity.

If carefully crafted and faithfully enforced, legal and institutional reforms can take down barriers and contribute immensely to achieving the objectives of the Convention.

COP15’s Biodiversity Law & Governance Day 2022 identified innovations, shared experiences, and charted a way forward in three main areas:

• Advancing legal elements of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework – COP 15 is expected to consider for adoption the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework in the context of the 2050 Vision, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and other processes. Much can be learned from law and governance approaches to implement the CBD – an ongoing, independent, experts-led legal and governance assessment is needed, and shall be developed by a consortium of international partners in the BLGI over the coming years. Legal and governance reform can make a crucial contribution to advancing the principles and targets of the framework and must be fully integrated into the indicators and monitoring tools. There is a pressing need to recognise and apply Indigenous law and philosophies, especially given the grounding of many Indigenous laws in the interconnected relationship with Mother Earth and all living beings.

• Enhancing nature-based solutions, sustainable use of natural resources and synergies with biodiversity and other treaties – Many international treaties and processes are key for biodiversity and ecosystems, including the CITES, the Convention on Migratory Species, the Ramsar Wetlands Convention, the UNFCCC and its Paris Agreement, the UNCCD, the oceans and water conventions, human rights covenants and accords, trade and investment agreements, and also indigenous treaties. Parties to the CBD and international organizations must strengthen and improve cooperation so as to enhance synergies and address intersections between regimes.  Indigenous treaties, including the new Indigenous Peoples Economic and Trade Cooperation Arrangement (“IPETCA”), embody mechanisms to foster biodiversity and environmental stewardship while reaffirming the need for integrating legal pluralism into legal biodiversity frameworks and targets. In many countries, treaty usufructuary rights for hunting, trapping, fishing and harvesting give quasi-constitutional protection to Indigenous traditional territory and may help protect habitat for all living things within the ecosystems of the traditional territories. Indigenous hunters, trappers, fishers and harvesters live connected to the environment and their traditional knowledge in resource stewardship allows that resource to thrive. These rights can and will be supported through new strengthened strategic alliances in the coming years, and by good practice legislative reforms such as granting legal standing to rivers and other ecological systems and features. Myriad law and governance mechanisms can and shall be activated to scale up nature-based solutions, to support fair and sustainable biodiversity trade, to exponentially accelerate effective, high-impact biodiversity investment and financing on all levels, and to strengthen indigenous and local community engagement in conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystems,worldwide.

• Strengthening the effectiveness of the Nagoya Protocol and addressing genetic information: The Nagoya Protocol entered into force in 2014. Many lessons can be learned from recent national and regional Access and Benefit Sharing (“ABS”) agreements implementation and capacity building efforts. For these agreements to be truly equitable and fair, and agreements to be meaningful and accountable, these concepts should mean the same to all involved, providers and users alike. Policy and regulatory options for Digital Sequence Information (“DSI”) should be addressed and assessed through the lenses of equity and fairness, allowing for providers’ Free and Prior Informed Consent. Digitalisation of genetic resources potentially shifts power balances, so its effects on ABS must be monitored to achieve an equitable and fair sharing of benefits and greater Protocol effectiveness. It is thus imperative that negotiators conclude unequivocally on a text and mechanisms, such as experts committees and workshops, to provide clear guidance for providers and users of genetic resources, notably regarding governance structures. This will also impact subsequent negotiations on ABS and DSI under adjacent legal instruments, including UNCLOS and the FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources. Finally, there is a need to involve and integrate Indigenous peoples’ voices in this discussion. Indigenous Intellectual property and Traditional Knowledge needs to be given not mere passing mention and continuous study, but real authority and control through effective mechanisms that recognize and extend beyond other limited concepts of Intellectual Property. The time-honored call for “Nothing about us without us” is crucial.

Offering dialogue, keynotes, and parallel roundtable/panel sessions, BLGD 2022 built on BLGD 2016 and 2018, by:

·       Profiling and sharing innovative multi-level biodiversity law and governance mechanisms, challenges and best practices;

·       Catalyzing knowledge exchange between delegates, legal practitioners, and the legal academic community to co-generate new law and governance knowledge and approaches; and

·       Facilitating collaboration within the law and governance community to support capacity development for implementing the CBD, the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and SDGs 14 and 15.

The community was especially honoured to announce the inaugural recipients of the Biodiversity Law and Governance Global Leadership Awards:

•  Mr Basile van Havre is recognized for decades of dedication to biodiversity conservation, especially for his critical contributions to the architecture of the global biodiversity conservation framework, in recent years of unfailing service as co-chair for the CBD Open-Ended Working Group.

• Adv Viviana Elsa Figueroa is recognized as a leader for Indigenous women and youth working for biodiversity, especially for her passion and leadership within the Indigenous Women Network on Biodiversity for Latin America and the Caribbean. 

• Adv Maria del Pilar Vanegas Guzman is recognized for her commitment to conflict resolution, human rights and humanitarian work, notably in her service to the International Committee of the Red Cross, and her contributions as President of the International Law Association in one of the world’s most mega-diverse countries, Colombia.

• Dr Amy Fraenkel is recognized for over 30 years of dedicated and inspiring commitment to biodiversity conservation and sustainable use through international law, in the CBD, in the United Nations Environment Programme, in the United States government, and currently as Executive Secretary for the Convention on Migratory Species. 

All Parties, Observers and stakeholders are very welcome to join this Initiative, as sponsors, partners, thematic leaders or participants. Senior representatives and experts from CBD Parties have formed a Programme Committee to guide the growing Initiative. We would especially welcome all interested governments and stakeholders to contact us, in order to help shape the next BLGD at COP16 in 2024, and ideally, to serve distinguished judges for the 2024 biodiversity law and governance global leadership awards, and an inaugural biodiversity law and policy student essay competition in 2024.

In conclusion, we are very grateful to the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL) for co-hosting the event, together with partners from McGill University, University of Montreal, University of Quebec a Montreal, University of Costa Rica, University of Cambridge, University of Kisangani and others, with thanks for the guidance of leaders in the Convention on Biological Diversity Secretariat (SCBD), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), International Union for the Conservation of Nature World Commission for Environmental Law (IUCN-WCEL), International Development Law Organization (IDLO), International Law Association (ILA), International Inter-tribal Trade and Investment Organization (IITIO), Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and other partners organisations.

BACKGROUND
Biodiversity Law & Governance Day 2022 Programme Outline