Law, Policy and Agricultural Biodiversity

• Published in: Routledge Handbook of Agricultural Biodiversity pp. 419 - 434
• Main Author: Santilli, Juliana
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2017
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: SMTA; Np; UPOV System; Wild Genetic Resources; UPOV Act; Crop Wild Relatives; Plant Varieties; Seed Laws; Sui Generis System; Plant Genetic Resources; Seed Systems; West Germany; UPOV Convention; Plant Variety Protection; Incredible Edible Todmorden; Genetic Resources; Aquatic Genetic Resources; Single Botanical Taxon; Community Plant Variety Rights; Trip Agreement; Benefit Sharing Provisions; Community Seed Banks; Conserve Plant Genetic Resources
• ISBN: 0415746922; 9780415746922
• DOI: 10.4324/9781317753285-27

This chapter will analyze the impact of key legal instruments and policies on agrobiodiversity. Focus will be given to access and benefit-sharing regulations and their impacts on crop and livestock genetic resources, including the Convention on Biological Diversity and its Nagoya Protocol (with particular regard to their impact on agrobiodiversity) and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) 1 . These will be placed in the broader context of the protection of intellectual property rights over plant varieties (so-called plant breeders’ rights and the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the World Trade Organization (focusing mainly on article 27.3.b), and of the Seed Laws which regulate seed production, the utilization and the sale of plant genetic resources. It will also discuss the place of farmers’ rights in these legal frameworks, as well as legal options for their implementation at the national level. This chapter analyzes the impact of key legal instruments and policies on agrobiodiversity. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is considered to be the first legal instrument to attempt to comprehensively regulate the conservation and use of biological diversity at a global scale. In order to oversee the implementation of access and benefit-sharing provisions under the CBD, a further instrument, the Nagoya Protocol (NP), was developed. By definition, the NP applies only to genetic resources that are already subject to regulation under the CBD. The International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants was adopted in 1961, and it established the so-called Plant Breeders' Rights (PBRs) or Plant Variety Rights (PVRs). Plant breeders have always argued that, because seeds are self-replicable, farmers can reproduce them easily, and do not need to buy seeds of newly created plant varieties.