A policy brief by Elsa Tsioumani explains why biotechnology is the subject of polarized debate regarding its potential benefits and risks, after emerging on the international agenda in the 1980s. The brief is part of the ‘Still Only One Earth’ series from IISD, being published in the lead-up to the 50th anniversary of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. 

Tsioumani highlights a legal protocol established in 2000 in a “significant achievement in international law,” the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Biosafety refers to protecting human health and the environment when managing organisms and genetic material, including related to possible adverse effects of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and biotechnology.

As more genetically modified crops, insects, and fish are being developed, the Protocol provides a forum to assess risk.

Tsioumani writes that as more genetically modified crops, insects, and fish are developed, the Protocol provides a forum to assess risk. It can help governments regulate emerging technologies as well.

Tsioumani argues that “the old debate over promises and risks of modern biotechnology reinvents itself around new scientific achievements.” She writes that it remains a challenge for the international community to address emerging technologies by examining environmental and socio-economic risks while reaping potential benefits.

The brief provides an overview of the “biotechnology revolution,” recaps the difficult, historic negotiations on the Cartagena Protocol, and describes the Protocol’s basic principles, implementation mechanisms, and an additional process created in 2010 to handle liability and redress for potential harm caused to biodiversity by transboundary movements of living modified organisms (LMOs). It also notes linkages with other international agreements, including the International Plant Protection Convention, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the World Organisation for Animal Health – which together are recognized as the standard-setting bodies under the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) and other WTO agreements may also apply to LMOs.

Other briefs in the ‘Still Only One Earth’ series focus on biodiversity, wildlife trade, sustainable energy, finance and technology, climate change, plastic pollution, poverty eradication, measurement approaches, private sector action, public health, blue economy, gender equality, extended producer responsibility, and regional governance of seas, among other issues. [Still Only One Earth policy brief series] [Publication: Biosafety: Ensuring the Safe Use of Modern Biotechnologies]