NEW DELHI: India’s last-minute intervention to protect sovereign rights through changes in final text could manage a groundbreaking agreement on the operationalisation of a new global mechanism to share benefits from digital genetic information at 16th session of UN biodiversity summit (COP16) in Cali, Colombia, even as the biennial meet failed to reach consensus on the creation of a new global biodiversity fund on Saturday.
The countries also agreed on an expanded role of indigenous people and local communities in saving biodiversity — another important takeaway from COP16 that had to be suspended due to lack of quorum in its final plenary that continued for 12 hours without decision on setting up the fund to support biodiversity initiatives globally.
Observers noted that the quorum could not be reached as the session ran into extra time and members started leaving the venue to catch their respective flights back home. The COP16 was earlier scheduled to conclude on Friday. Its leftover tasks — financial mechanism (fund) and monitoring framework — now need to be revisited at a later date and new venue.
The decision on the benefit sharing from uses of digital sequence information (DSI) on genetic resources “more fairly and equitably” addresses how pharmaceutical, biotechnology, animal and plant breeding and other industries benefiting from it should share those benefits with developing countries and indigenous people and local communities.
Sources familiar with the final negotiations on DSI issues said India objected to the text which was meant to supersede national laws. The country asked for a clause on ensuring national ‘access and benefit sharing’ laws to be included in the annexure. The final agreement reached only when the chair agreed for New Delhi’s suggestion through consensus, they added.
Besides India, other developing countries including Bolivia, Egypt and Argentina did also object to any such move that could interfere with the countries’ sovereign rights. India was represented at COP16 by a team of officials led by junior environment minister KirtiVardhan Singh.
