Practical advice to ensure legal certainty when accessing your genetic resource samples

For every natural product researcher in either academic or industrial sectors, legal access to biodiversity has become nowadays a strategic and very sensitive issue. The need to share the fair and equitable benefits arising from the utilization of genetic / biological resources established by the Rio Convention (1992) was reaffirmed by the Nagoya Protocol (2010) [1] which entered into force internationally on 12^th October 2014. In this framework national access laws and the European regulation EU N°511 / 20142 have been implemented and enforced[2]. They must be clearly understood by researchers and fully integrated into working practices.

The practical processes for legally accessing our biodiversity samples from source countries[3] are crucial points. The temporal and geographical scopes and the nature of utilization (R&D, commercial use …) must be clearly defined as they determine the legal framework. Prior Informed Consent (PIC), Mutually Agreed Term (MAT) contracts, administrative formalities and obligations must be undertaken. The “ABCD” main issues of the Nagoya Protocol implementation are Access, Benefit sharing, Compliance and Due Diligence Declarations.

Clear understanding and respect of the regulations should be achieved in the interest of all stakeholders: source countries, local populations, academic researchers, industries, patients and customers of biodiversity derived products.

Fig. 1

• References

• 1 http://www.cbd.int/abs/doc/protocol/nagoya-protocol-en.pdf
• 2 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/biodiversity/international/abs/legislation_en.htm
• 3 David B. New regulations for accessing plant biodiversity samples, what is ABS? Phytochem Rev 2018; 17: 1211-1223