The second meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety achieved a number of successful steps towards the Protocol’s implementation, including decisions on capacity building, and public awareness and participation, and constructive discussions on risk assessment and risk management, including agreement to establish an intersessional technical expert group.

Nevertheless, the meeting, held from 30 May to 3 June 2005, in Montreal, Canada, did not succeed in fulfilling its main task laid out in the text of the Protocol itself, namely adopting a decision on the detailed requirements of documentation of living modified organisms for food, feed or for processing. Adoption of the decision was deferred to the third meeting of the Parties, to be held in March 2006, in Curitiba, Brazil. IISDRS coverage.