Highlights and images for 14 August 2024

Can the international community enhance scientific innovation while ensuring equity and digital justice? As negotiations continued at full speed, delegates addressed a range of issues related to the governance of the multilateral benefit-sharing mechanism from use of digital sequence information (DSI) on genetic resources and the operations of its global fund. 

Want to dig deeper into today's talks? Read the full Earth Negotiations Bulletin daily report.

Debates on governance of the multilateral mechanism centered on its relationship with relevant international instruments. Delegates discussed ways to ensure coordination with other DSI-related instruments, including the World Health Organization, the Agreement under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement), and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.

Ways to ensure coordination include Norway’s proposal to establish a collective arrangement envisioned to serve as an information-exchange forum, and more traditional cooperation avenues through information sharing and cooperation between Secretariats. The discussion further highlighted divergent views with regard to the relationship of the multilateral mechanism with national access and benefit-sharing (ABS) measures, in particular those requiring benefit-sharing from DSI use. 

Discussions also revealed principled differences on the role of public DSI databases in scientific innovation amidst increasing global inequities and the potential role of the Convention. A number of public databases globally provide open access to an increasing amount of DSI. But given the huge gap in capacities to store and use DSI, who benefits from open access? Who would be held accountable if publicly available DSI inadvertently leads to biopiracy? How can the rights of countries of origin and Indigenous Peoples be protected? Suggestions to include information on the country of origin and compliance with its ABS regulations generated a robust debate. 

Throughout the day, deliberations continued on other issues, including on contributions to the global DSI fund and funding allocations. Discussions focused on, among other things, the entities that should contribute to the DSI global fund and modalities for their respective contributions. 

Although delegates expressed mixed feelings regarding progress, many pointed to the collegial atmosphere and the productive ideas shared, as they concluded a first reading of the Co-Chairs' non-paper. A revised non-paper is anticipated for discussions on Thursday.