Biosafety Protocol,
3rd Meeting of the Parties (MOP-3)
Curitiba, Brazil, 13-17 March, 2006
 

The 3rd meeting of the 'Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity serving as the Meeting of the Parties' to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (COP/MOP-3) had the difficult challenge of repairing the political  damage to the Biosafety Protocol that was done at the COP/MOP-2 in Montréal in 2005 when Brazil and New Zealand broke - in an unprecedented move - the multilateral consensus on Article 18.2(a). It is not exaggerated to state that this paragraph represents a corner stone of the Protocol, it has in fact been at the center of intensely negotiated differences of views prior to the adoption of the Protocol in January 2000 because it stipulates the different treatment between GM crops that are destined for "intentional introduction into the environment" (i.e. especially seeds and fish), and those that are not, i.e. which are "intended for direct use as food or feed, or for processing." The regulatory difference between the treatment of seeds and of commodity crops hinges on this paragraph through the acceptance of the labelling "may contain" living modified organisms for the latter category. As the Chatham House Background Note concludes, "the the fast-evolving nature of the biotech industry will continue to create unpredictable results at future Meetings of the Parties as new LMO-exporters emerge and take steps to protect their trade interests (p. 8)." The analysis by Mireia Martinez Barrabes presents an empirical rendering of these often thorny legal issues with detailed attention to the procedural and documentary aspects of this particular MOP.

It is interesting to note that the whole debate - essentially determined by the large commercial stakes tied to the sensitive GM food labeling issue - is a question of risk communication. Risk communication represents one of the three pillars of risk analysis, the other two being risk assessment and risk management. For reasons that may be related to the difficulty of analyzing and circumscribing the politically sensitive and complex nature of risk communication, it is clear that the literature as well as intergovernmental negotiations very rarely refer to risk communication and instead are limited to risk assessment and risk management. The Faculty of Law of the University of Geneva has innovated in this domain with the organization of a scientific Roundtable on "WTO Law, Science and Risk Communication" (May 11, 2006). The intense debates that took place at MOP-2 and MOP-3 on the issue of food crops that "may contain" or "contain" GMOs or living modified organisms hardly ever used the term risk communication. Nevertheless, the approach used by the Codex Alimentarius of distinguishing risk communication from risk assessment and management is very pertinent.

The analyses posted on this page explain how the MOP-3 meeting has been successful in overcoming the Montréal 2005 deadlock by introducing a new distinction between impurities or trace amounts whose characteristics are well established and known, and those which are not, and for which the "may contain" provision is acceptable as an interim solution until 2010 when this question is scheduled to come up for review, with the objective of finding a permanent solution by 2012.
 

The Biosafety Protocol's Article 18.2(a) states:

HANDLING, TRANSPORT, PACKAGING AND IDENTIFICATION

2.    Each Party shall take measures to require that documentation accompanying: