The fifth meeting of the Open-ended Ad Hoc Working Group of Legal and Technical Experts on Liability and Redress in the context of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety took place from 12-19 March 2008, in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia.

The Working Group spent the first three days of the meeting focusing on the elaboration of options for rules and procedures referred to in Article 27 of the Protocol based on a revised working draft compiled by Co-Chairs Jimena Nieto (Colombia) and René Lefeber (the Netherlands). On the fourth day of the meeting, the Co-Chairs introduced a core elements paper as a tool intended to move the negotiations forward. The paper contained four pieces and essentially set out a “package deal” on the administrative approach, civil liability, the supplementary compensation scheme and capacity building. After significant discussion, delegates did not agree with the choices made in the core elements paper and decided to revise it in a Friends of the Chair group. Agreement was reached on definition of damage, but many outstanding issues remain, including standard of liability and causation. Delegates also deferred debate on the choice of instrument.
The meeting’s key outcome was that the Working Group agreed on certain core elements, reduced the number of options for operational text and categorized the remaining options in a way that reflects the main choices for elaborating international rules and procedures on liability and redress. As a result, the working document has been reduced from 53 to 27 pages. The Working Group also agreed to convene an intersessional Friends of the Chair group to further negotiate the core elements, to be held prior to the fourth meeting of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity serving as meeting of the parties to the Protocol, which will convene in Bonn, Germany, from 12-16 May 2008.
Link to further information
IISD RS coverage of the meeting