Brussels, 15/01/2013 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament wants the EU to help developing countries take advantage of their genetic resources and their traditional knowledge, and in a resolution adopted in Strasbourg on Tuesday 15 January the Parliament set out the measures that it recommends for tackling “biopiracy” - the commercial use by multinationals of substances that have medicinal properties and traditional remedies originating from developing countries, but without these countries' authorisation and without the people who discovered these active properties benefitting from the results.
Agreeing with the line taken by the rapporteur, Catherine Grèze (Greens/EFA, France), Parliament recommends support for these countries to create the necessary institutions. It calls on the EU and the member states to swiftly ratify and implement the Nagoya protocol which seeks fairer benefit sharing between the provider countries and users of the genetic resources, and calls immediately for a new legal framework making the award of patents dependent on disclosing the origin of the product's components, and providing evidence of consent from authorities in the provider country and evidence that the ingredients have been acquired fairly and legally. By doing this, the Parliament's resolution “on development aspects of intellectual property rights on genetic resources: the impact on poverty reduction in developing countries” picks up the key demands of the developing countries. The challenge is sizeable because, despite the existence of international agreements aiming to protect the property rights of indigenous peoples to their genetic resources and traditional knowledge, no mechanism exists to ensure the agreements are applied. The existing laws on intellectual property rights can even have negative effects, given that they assess the traditional knowledge uniquely from a mercantile point of view, the MEPs point out. “Ninety percent of the world's biological heritage is found in developing countries, yet the vast majority of patents are held by developed ones. Our rules for using natural resources and traditional knowledge are very ill-defined and companies exploit this legal uncertainty to make use of traditional know-how. MEPs have affirmed their resolve to fight against this new colonialism, this rush for green gold. We are facing a threat of concentration of global genetic resources and traditional knowledge into the hands of a few multinational companies in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food-processing sector, which are true 'pirates of the living environment'”, Grèze said (our translation).
Parliament points out that biopiracy can hinder the economic progress of a developing country and go against the EU's development policy objectives. The resolution states that 70% of the world's poor populations are directly dependent on biological diversity for their survival and well-being. The EU should not therefore encourage developing countries to conclude trade agreements that require too strict intellectual property standards, given that, at the current time, these standards are not appropriate to the needs of traditional knowledge-holders. According to the MEPs, the EU should help developing countries form legal and institutional mechanisms, as well as understand the patent application systems. Parliament welcomes the European Commission recent proposal to implement the Nagoya protocol. (AN/transl.fl)