ENB:09:06
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[Contents]
NEGOTIATION OF THE CONVENTION
The treaty reflects policy and scientific recommendations made over many years by a number of groups and experts, beginning with the IUCN's Commission on Environmental Law and the IUCN Environmental Law Centre in the 1980s. UNEP convened a series of expert group meetings beginning in November 1988. These meetings led to a new treaty on biodiversity separate from, but negotiated parallel to, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). The initial sessions were referred to as meetings of the "Ad Hoc Working Group of Experts on Biological Diversity." By the summer of 1990, sufficient progress had been made, including the completion of studies on various aspects of the issues, that a new "Sub-Working Group on Biotechnology" was established to prepare terms of reference on biotechnology transfer, in situ and ex situ conservation of wild and domesticated species; access to genetic resources and to technology, including biotechnology; new and additional financial support; and safety of release or experimentation on genetically modified organisms.
The Governing Council of UNEP created an "Ad Hoc Working Group of Legal and Technical Experts" in mid-1990 to prepare a new international legal instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. It was given the mandate to take "particular account of the need to share costs and benefits between developed and developing countries and ways and means to support innovation by local people." The legal and technical experts considered prior reports while drafting elements of a convention. The Executive Director of UNEP prepared the first formal draft Convention on Biological Diversity, which was considered in February 1991, by an "Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee" (INC). The first INC meeting was also known as the third session of the Ad Hoc Working Group of Legal and Technical Experts. Four subsequent sessions of the INC were held during the next two years, culminating in the adoption of the final text of the treaty in Nairobi, Kenya on 22 May 1992.
At the conclusion of negotiations, in an "eleventh hour" decision, Governments adopted Resolution 2 on international cooperation for the conservation of biological diversity and the sustainable use of its components pending entry into force of the Convention. This document invited UNEP, at its Governing Council session, to consider convening meetings of an Intergovernmental Committee on Biological Diversity to consider, among other things: assistance to Governments in preparation of their country studies; organization of the preparation of an agenda for scientific and technological research; the need and modalities for a protocol for the safe transfer, handling and use of modified organisms resulting from biotechnology; modalities for the transfer of technology; policy guidance for the institutional structure invited to undertake the operation of the financial mechanism for the period until the entry into force; development of the policy, strategy and programme priorities, as well as the eligibility criteria for access to financial resources under the Convention; and other preparations for the first Conference of the Parties.