ENB:09:17
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INTERNATIONAL FRAMEWORK AND GUIDELINES:
Germany, on behalf
of the European Union, stated that in the short-term the
development of technical guidelines on biosafety was favored
without prejudice to the medium-term development of international
legal instruments on biosafety, while assessing the need for and
modalities of a protocol. The Netherlands stated that an
international agreement on safety in biotechnology should
eventually be given the form of a legally-binding agreement and
that such an agreement should pay attention to both capacity
building and timing. It was noted that the Netherlands has
supported the organization of two regional meetings: African
Regional Conference for International Cooperation on Safety in
Biotechnology in October 1993 and a joint US/Dutch meeting in
Colombia in June 1994. In addition, the UK and Netherlands held an
expert-meeting on technical guidelines in biosafety in March 1994
whose findings could be made available as background information.
The UK referred to joint work with the Netherlands and announced
its plan co-host a meeting on biosafety in 1995 in Asia. The US
stated that a protocol on biosafety is not warranted, but it did
recognize the needs specified in Article 19 and stated that
guidelines were not a substitute for scientific evaluations and did
not replace needs-based requirements. Japan stated that decisions
on this issue should be made on the basis of accumulated scientific
knowledge and on-going examinations, such as those conducted by the
OECD.