Blogging Biodiversity

Wednesday morning, day 3, I again fulfilled my obligation as a reporter by taking notes on the session of the Transnational Enforcement of Environmental Law Committee. The Committee was presenting its final report and also proposing the adoption of the “Toronto Rules on Transnational Enforcement of Environmental Law”.

The meeting was very interesting to me given the work I’d done in this area while at the Secretariat to the CBD and also given some ongoing cases in this area, notably the Argentina v. Uruguay (see May 23rd blog entry) and Pakootas cases. There were a few people in the room who’d been involved in the Argentina v. Uruguay case and so I was able to learn more about the dispute including its origins in the NGO community and how it was ‘forum-shopped’ until finally winding up at the ICJ. It also helped that the ICJ was holding the public hearings on Argentina’s request for provisional measures in the two days after this session.

There was a good discussion of the proposed rules including suggestions for refinements and clarifications, a number of which were taken on board. One proposal was to refine the right of access to justice in rule 1 such that it was available/applicable for the protection of existing environmental rights or one of a number of other rights (right to life, to private and family life and home, to receive and impart information and ideas, etc.) for jurisdictions where the right to environment is not protected.

Other comments concerned the status and purpose of the proposed rules, i.e. were they simply to summarize existing law or to be a suggestion for how to proceed in this area? The answer was that the job of the Committee is to provide soft law suggestions for the progressive development of the law. In order for these suggestions to be taken seriously, they need to be based on a solid foundation of existing law.

A final topic for discussion concerned future work. The Committee was to be dissolved after it presented its report but many people felt it was important for the ILA to have a committee working on international environmental law. There were a number of suggestions for possible areas where a new committee could work including the implementation of international environmental law, the efficiency of international environmental law, and institutional reform in environmental law. The brainstorming will continue via e-mail before submitting a formal proposal to the Director of Studies.

For the afternoon, I eagerly attended the session of the International Law on Biotechnology Committee. The Committee is only just getting started in its work and its first report presents a possible research agenda that will need to be narrowed down to a manageable size. It seemed as though the Committee has been going through some growing pains as they’ve had a hard time holding on to rapporteurs. I think this will improve, though, as the work gets into more of the substance.

I was impressed with the broad approach to biotechnology that had been taken by the Committee. Their report didn’t just include some of the usual biosafety stuff or restrict itself to non-humans but also included consideration of human rights, good governance, IPRs, the public domain, public goods, market access, and liability and state responsibility. Included somewhere in all of this was ABS - from both the CBD and IT perspectives - and I was pleased to see that connection being made.

Thursday, day 4, the final day. I took the morning to attend to some other business and then attended the plenary session on the ‘Rights of Indigenous Peoples’ as well as the closing plenary session. The plenary on indigenous rights was very interesting. Prof. James Anaya from the University of Arizona posed a number of questions. These included asking to what extent the Draft Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples summarizes existing law and to what extent does international law already protect the rights of indigenous people. He also asked how the Declaration will help to build and consolidate the law/legal norms of the rights of indigenous people. Another question was whether the issue of the rights of indigenous peoples fits into the framework of international law under states rights frames or human rights frames.

Prof. Martin Scheinin from Finland described the development of a Nordic Saami Rights Treaty, which sounds like it will be quite a remarkable instrument once it enters into force given the high degree to which it involves the Saami in governance.

The closing plenary went smoothly. It was a chance to hear very brief remarks about what the other Committees had been discussing. One thing that caught my attention was that the International Trade Law Committee proposed a resolution something along the lines that TRIPS-plus agreements should be avoided. The resolution was adopted during the plenary but unfortunately, I don’t have the actual text.

Posted on June 19th, 2006 under ABS, CBD, FAO, Intellectual property, Liability & Redress, Traditional knowledge •  Print This Post •  Email This Post • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback