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Focus on Challenges
Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (Cartagena Protocol) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) held their sixth meeting (COP/MOP-6) this October in Hyderabad, India, under the Presidency of Jayanthi Natarajan, Indian Minister of Environment and Forests, with M.F. Farooqui, of the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests, serving as Chair. The COP/ MOP elected Ines Verleye (Belgium) to chair Working Group I, Spencer Thomas (Grenada) to chair Working Group II, and Conrod Hunte (Antigua and Barbuda) to chair the meetings of the Budget Committee.
The meetings of Cartagena Protocol Parties are dubbed "COP/MOP" in recognition of the fact that all decisions of the Protocol Parties must later be ratified by the Conference of CBD Parties (in this case, CBD COP-11, reported at p. 298). Like the relationship between the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol, this arrangement gives countries that are not party to the Protocol a direct role in influencing its operations. Predictably, difficult situations relating to this non-Party oversight have diminished as the number of Parties to the Protocol has increased. In 2012, with 164 Parties to the Protocol, as compared with 193 to the Convention, the process of COP ratification of COP/MOP decisions did not reflect any reported discord.
In COP/MOP-6, the meeting's emphasis was on compliance issues, capacities and procedures, all of which had been relatively thoroughly canvassed in previous COP/MOP discussions, but had been cast in shadow by the recurring discussions addressing issues relating to liability and redress - discussions which came together in the negotiation and 2010 adoption of the Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress (the Supplementary Protocol).
Reports from the meeting indicated a relatively low level of controversy, as delegates emphasised the need to move forward, now that the simmering disputes over liability and redress have been codified in an agreed instrument.1,2 As a result, the Parties were able to reach agreement on several points, but some reports suggest a level of disappointment that greater progress was not forthcoming.3
Compliance and Implementation
The issues of Protocol compliance and the governmental structures necessary for any country to implement the Protocol have been discussed in great detail in every COP and negotiating session since the 1993 commencement of...