March 2012: The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has circulated the report of the expert meeting on compliance with the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit-sharing (ABS), held from 28 February – 1 March 2012, in Montreal, Canada.

Participating experts worked on the basis of a background note containing a synthesis of views and possible draft elements and options for cooperative procedures and institutional mechanisms to promote compliance with the Protocol and address cases of non-compliance under Article 30 of the Nagoya Protocol. With a view to learning from the experiences in other relevant international fora, presentations were given by representatives of other treaty secretariats, including the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGR). Experts then worked towards reaching a common understanding on draft elements and options for procedures and mechanisms on compliance, including: their objectives, nature and underlying principles; institutional mechanisms, namely a compliance committee, and their functions; and procedures in relation to the compliance committee. The meeting’s outcome will be forwarded to the second meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Nagoya Protocol on ABS, to be held from 2-6 July 2012, in New Delhi, India. [Report of the Expert Meeting on Compliance][Meeting Website]