Alternative models to the bilateral arrangement as a solution to ABS challenges

根据1962年联合国大会根据第1803 XVIII号决议首次确立的国家对其自然资源的主权概念，《生物多样性公约》引入了一项双边交换安排，即交换遗传资源(GR)和与这种资源相关的传统知识(ATK)以及在其提供者和使用者之间利用这些资源所产生的利益。其第15条根据事先知情同意(PIC)和相互商定的条款(MAT)以及用户分享使用惠益的要求，建立了由提供者控制的制度。这一系统运行得很糟糕(Prip和Rosendal，2015)，一些作者认为利益分享项目失败了(Muller等人)。2019年12月；穆勒2015年；2021年冬季)。《生物多样性公约》缔约方商定了一项具有约束力的文书，要求供应商执行立法、行政或政策措施，确保法律确定性、清晰度和透明度，要求用户采取措施，确保遵守供应商规则，促进对价值链的跟踪和监测，因此人们认为，2010年的《名古屋议定书》将消除这些挑战和随之而来的混乱(Kamau 2014)。现实是令人沮丧的，分别是《生物多样性公约》和《国家方案》通过29年和10年。即使在新法律试图与国家法律相一致的情况下，获取和利益分享(ABS)仍然存在无数挑战。特别是，货币惠益分享对生物多样性的保护和可持续利用至关重要，但实现程度很低。我们的假设是，这些挑战的核心在于双边交换安排。此外，双边主义被认为不适合数字序列信息(DSI)的获取、使用和利益分享的方式(Laird等人，2020年；Scholz等人，2020年)，这是(货币)利益真正来源的基础，其所有权目前是提供者和用户之间争执的主要问题。在对现行制度的成就和失败进行分析和解释的基础上，该研究项目旨在审查与主权权利和利益分享挂钩或脱钩这一重大问题的替代模式。考虑到目前在几个论坛上关于多边利益分享的讨论，以及未来几年将作出的决定，这一主题非常有针对性，项目也很及时。事实上，在《生物多样性公约》一级已经开始了这方面的审议。

Based on the concept of sovereign rights of States over their natural resources which was first established by the UN General Assembly in 1962 under Resolution 1803 XVIII the CBD introduced a bilateral quid pro quo arrangement of exchange of genetic resources (GR) and traditional knowledge associated to such resources (aTK) and the benefits arising from their utilization between their providers and users. Its article 15 establishes a system of control by the provider based on prior informed consent (PIC) and mutually agreed terms (MAT) as well as the requirement of the user to share benefits from utilization. This system has functioned dismally (Prip and Rosendal 2015) and the benefit-sharing project is judged by some authors as having failed (Muller et al. December 2019; Muller 2015; Winter 2021). With the parties to the CBD agreeing on a binding instrument that required providers to implement legislative, administrative or policy measures which ensure legal certainty, clarity and transparency, and users to put measures in place which ensure compliance with provider rules and facilitated tracking and monitoring of the value chain, it was thought that with the Nagoya Protocol (NP) of 2010 these challenges and the ensuing mess would be eliminated (Kamau 2014). The reality is discouraging 29 and 10 years since the adoption of the CBD and the NP respectively. Even with the new laws attempting to reach conformity with the NP, access and benefit-sharing (ABS) retain a myriad of challenges. In particular monetary benefit-sharing, which is consequential for conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, has been poorly realized. Our hypothesis is that the core of these challenges lies with the bilateral quid pro quo arrangement. Besides, bilateralism is considered a poor fit to modalities of access and use of and benefit-sharing from digital sequence information (DSI) (Laird et al., 2020; Scholz et al., 2020) which is a basis for the real source of (monetary) benefits, and the ownership of which is currently a major issue of contention between providers and users. Based on an analysis and explanation of the achievements and failures of the present system the research project aims to examine alternative models with the substantial question of linking or delinking sovereign rights and benefit-sharing. The theme is very topical and the project timely given the current discussions of multilateral benefit-sharing in several fora, and the decisions that will be taken over the next few years. Indeed, deliberations in this regard have started at the CBD level.