---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Biodiversity Centre <[email protected]> Date: Jan 11, 2010 11:43 PM Subject: [GreenLeft_discussion] Biodiversity Forum expresses concern over biopiracy To: [email protected], [email protected] Cc: [email protected]
Hope the govt will take CBD seriously and stem the tide of biopiracy. Rajendran ...................... http://beta.thehindu.com/news/states/kerala/article79028.ece Biodiversity Forum expresses concern over biopiracy Roy Mathew The Indian Biodiversity Forum has expressed concern over India’s failure to invoke provisions of the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) to check the escalating piracy of Ayurvedic medicines. According to an official release of the Union Ministry for Environment and Forests, about 2000 patents related to the Indian Systems of Medicine are granted every year in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the European Patent Office, and other overseas patent offices. However, the Ministry had failed to challenge the biopiracy legally using the provisions of the Convention, the Forum said. In a message to the Union Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh, the chairman of the Forum S. Faizi said the Ministry is accountable to the nation for its failure to check the escalating biopiracy. The CBD explicitly recognised national sovereign rights over biodiversity, and it stipulated legally binding conditions for access to biodiversity for a foreign entity, namely, prior informed consent of the country, mutually agreed terms and equitable benefit sharing. Violation of these provisions constituted an infraction of the CBD except in the case of the U.S. which is not a party to the CBD. The government had miserably failed to invoke the provisions of CBD in opposing the patents in countries which are parties to CBD. Instead, it was pursuing the patent laws that regarded biodiversity as a global resource, in line with the TRIPS provisions. “No single legal case was raised by India arguing that the biodiversity and related knowledge in question are the sovereign national resource of India and these were misappropriated by the entity in question.” Dr. Faizi, who was negotiator in the Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee that formulated the CBD, said the Indian delegation had not raised the issue of the growing piracy of India’s biodiversity in any of the numerous CBD meetings that followed the formulation of the treaty. Besides, India had not asked for a debate on the failure of those Parties who have not taken the legislative, administrative and policy measures to require its citizens and legal persons to comply with the CBD provisions. It had also not asked for activating the dispute settlement mechanism provided in the treaty. “India’s position and performance in the negotiations on access and benefit-sharing has been casual, allowing the process to virtually reopen the hard negotiated provisions of the treaty,” he said. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] __._,_.___ Reply to sender<[email protected]?subject=biodiversity+forum+expresses+concern+over+biopiracy>| Reply to group<[email protected]?subject=biodiversity+forum+expresses+concern+over+biopiracy> Messages in this topic<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GreenLeft_discussion/message/68603;_ylc=X3oDMTM2ZWxycmg3BF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzkyMzc3NzQEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1MDYwNjgyBG1zZ0lkAzY4NjAzBHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3Z0cGMEc3RpbWUDMTI2MzIzMzkzNQR0cGNJZAM2ODYwMw-->( 1) Recent Activity: Visit Your Group<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GreenLeft_discussion;_ylc=X3oDMTJlMmhwZHJnBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzkyMzc3NzQEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1MDYwNjgyBHNlYwN2dGwEc2xrA3ZnaHAEc3RpbWUDMTI2MzIzMzkzNQ--> Start a New Topic<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GreenLeft_discussion/post;_ylc=X3oDMTJlNjFoYWJvBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzkyMzc3NzQEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1MDYwNjgyBHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA250cGMEc3RpbWUDMTI2MzIzMzkzNQ--> Green Left Weekly depends on your support! Subscribe to Green Left Weekly! http://www.greenleft.org.au/subscribe.htm Make a donation to help Green Left Weekly continue! http://www.greenleft.org.au/fogl.htm MARKETPLACE Going Green: Your Yahoo! Groups resource for green living<http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=14kmobqk4/M=493064.13814333.13821539.13298430/D=groups/S=1705060682:MKP1/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1263241135/L=/B=1U8KCkPDhEw-/J=1263233935463252/K=KxaFeB_p9myJxv4JzHfbNg/A=5922843/R=0/SIG=11ckn2mo6/*http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/green/> [image: Yahoo! Groups]<http://groups.yahoo.com/;_ylc=X3oDMTJkcmwxODdwBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzkyMzc3NzQEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1MDYwNjgyBHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA2dmcARzdGltZQMxMjYzMjMzOTM1> Switch to: Text-Only<[email protected]?subject=change+delivery+format:+Traditional>, Daily Digest<[email protected]?subject=email+delivery:+Digest>• Unsubscribe<[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>• Terms of Use <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> . __,_._,___--
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