Genetic resources: India bats for inclusive mechanism, fair and equitable use principles

Bengaluru: As discussions on the use of digital sequence information (DSI) of the genetic resources concluded in Montreal, Canada on Friday, India has sought several measures to ensure that countries with rich biodiversity get their fair share in the multi-trillion-dollar annual revenues.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a United Nations body, adopted the access benefit sharing (ABS) system under the Nagoya Protocol in 2010. In 2014, India notified the guidelines for ABS and laid down financial obligations of the individuals and firms that use genetic resources. The rules also aim to ensure the sustainable use of such resources to minimise impact on biodiversity.

Over the last two decades, digital information of the genome of genetic resources or DSI, has led to a multi-trillion dollar revenue for pharmaceutical, chemical, cosmetics and agriculture industries. The CBD set up an open-ended working group to evolve a mechanism to bring the users of DSI under the ABS guidelines.

At the second meeting, which concluded on Friday, India welcomed the CBD's proposal for users to share non-monetary benefits for capacity building, technology transfer and other developments but expressed concern over implementation and enforcement.

"As per the Nagoya Protocol, ABS have to be fair and equitable. By definition, 'benefits' includes both 'monetary and non-monetary and, therefore, the users of DSI need to spell out both the monetary benefits through the mlti-lateral mechanism and non-monetary benefits shared bilaterally or between the users of DSI and more than one country," it said.

India stressed the need to establish an institutional mechanism as per the relevant national legislation for ensuring full and effective participation of the indigenous people and local communities based on their prior and informed consent of the use of the traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources and the data related to it.

Credit where due

India also urged CBD to ensure the country of origin of each genetic resource should be recorded in the database to enforce the principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability (FAIR) and collective benefits, authority to control, responsibility and ethics (CARE).

India noted that the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC) policy has in 2023 made contextual metadata (source qualifiers, 'country' and 'collection date') compulsory for all newly submitted entries to the genetic database by December 2024. "India re-emphasises that this requirement must be strictly enforced on all the INSDC submissions as well as extended to other databases," it said.

India also endorsed the CBD's proposal that the entities operating the public databases on DSI should be encouraged to raise awareness of the multilateral ABS mechanism and of ABS obligations in a fair and equitable manner.

With regard to contribution to be made by parties, India said CBD may have it lay down the quantum, periodicity and the time of contribution to be made by the businesses for each product and businesses sourced from DSI or genetic resources to enable national governments to decide upon the contribution to be made by businesses in an objective and transparent manner.

To CBD's suggestion that contributions to global funds may be made directly or through national authority, India said it would be better that contributions are routed through competent authority "for transparency" in businesses. It said steps should be made to harmonise businesses that operate in complex global value chains.

India also asked for recognition of the companies that comply with rules. "India is of the view that the users that contribute to the multilateral mechanism may be given internationally recognised certificates of compliance," it said.