The ninth meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Access and Benefit-sharing (ABS) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) convened from 22-28 March 2010, in Santiago de Cali, Colombia.

The meeting continued negotiations on an international regime on ABS, in view of its mandate to submit an instrument for consideration at the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 10). For the first time in the process, negotiations were conducted on the basis of a draft protocol, tabled as a Co-Chair’s text and developed upon a request made during the Co-Chairs’ Informal Inter-regional Consultation held prior to ABS 9. Following three days of productive contact group discussions and significant progress achieved on a number of issues, including benefit-sharing from derivatives and an internationally recognized certificate of compliance, an inter-regional group was established. Due to procedural wrangling, the inter-regional group did not manage to enter into text-based negotiations. The Working Group eventually agreed to: suspend ABS 9 and convene a resumed session in June/July 2010; and forward the draft protocol text as revised in Cali to the resumed session, with the understanding that the draft was not negotiated, is without prejudice to the rights of parties to make further amendments and additions to the text, and should be read together with the ABS 9 report reflecting parties’ views expressed at the meeting.
Link to further information
IISD RS coverage of the meeting