Themes
Quick guides for: Genebank Managers
Donors - Media - Scientists - Trainers/Trainees Employment Contacts Subscribe Home Site map
Donors - Media - Scientists - Trainers/Trainees Employment Contacts Subscribe Home Site map
The Treaty
Child in Nepal holding a bouquet of rice, one of the crops covered under the Treaty.Credit: B. Sthapit/Bioversity
For more images go to the Image Bank
This legally binding treaty came into force on 29 June 2004, ninety days after forty governments had ratified it. In June 2006, the Governing Body of the International Treaty met for the first time. As of November 2006, 110 countries have ratified the Treaty.
To understand the importance of the Treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources, scroll down or click on the links below.
Some history
The need for an agreement
What does the Treaty accomplish?
The standard material transfer agreement (SMTA)
Agreements between the CGIAR Centres and the Treaty's Governing Body
The Role of the CGIAR Centres
Some history
To understand the significance of the Treaty, a bit of history is in order.
For thousands of years there were no international laws governing genetic resources. Farmers and plant breeders were generally free to exchange seeds and plant propagating material. Free access to plant genetic resources has allowed farmers and breeders to develop a wide diversity of crop varieties and animal species adapted to many different environments and climates, resistant to many different pests and diseases and suited to many different tastes and cultures.
Over time, as crops and livestock spread and developed, every country in the world became dependent on genetic resources from other regions. We owe our agricultural biodiversity to that fact that the patterns of use and exchange of genetic resources were able to develop openly; agricultural growth and innovation depends on it.
Recognizing the global importance of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, the 1983 FAO Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, the non-binding agreement that was the forerunner to the International Treaty, explicitly stated that these resources were the ‘common heritage’ of humankind. Some countries declined to subscribe to the International Undertaking on the grounds that it did not recognize intellectual property rights.
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which came into force in 1993, emphasized states’ sovereign rights over their natural resources and their “authority to determine access to genetic resources, subject to national legislation.” The CBD also establishes that states shall endeavour to create conditions for facilitate access to genetic resources, and that such access, when granted, should be subject to prior informed consent, and subject to mutually agreed terms. These are broad principles that can be implemented in a number of different ways. Most countries’ efforts to implement the access and benefit sharing provisions of the CBD have taken the form of creating bilaterally oriented access laws that require case-by-case negotiations to establish legal conditions for obtaining and using materials from a country.
See Access and Benefit Sharing
The global community has agreed that this approach is generally not well suited to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. Consider the example of Veery wheat, which is the product of 3 170 different crosses involving 51 parents from 26 countries that was globally, publicly released. Imagine the impact on the development cycle of Veery if for each parent and each cross it was necessary to negotiate a separate agreement. Such a technically complex process involving heavy reliance on expensive legal backup would have stopped the exchange of germplasm and seriously hampered the development of the variety; it would do so for all agricultural research.
The need for an agreement
Governments negotiating the CBD realized that it was not appropriate, for example, for the existing ex situ collections of plant genetic reources for food and agriculture held around the world, that were collected prior to the coming into force of the CBD. At the same time, governments felt it was necessary to promote cooperation between the CBD and the Global System of Sustainable Use of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture as supported by FAO. In adopting the agreed text of the CBD in May 1992, countries also adopted Resolution 3 of the Nairobi Final Act, which recognised the need to seek solutions to outstanding matters concerning plant genetic resources,
Consequently the global community recognized the need for a new agreement that would bring the FAO International Undertaking in line with the CBD. Seven years of negotiations later, the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture was adopted.
What does the Treaty accomplish?
One of the major results of the International Treaty was a multilateral system that facilitated access to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and created a mechanism for an equitable sharing of benefits derived from the use of these resources. The Treaty includes a list of crops and forages that are included in the multilateral system, provided they are under the control and management of parties to the agreement and in the public domain. People and organizations in member states gain access to all of the Annex 1 materials of all other states that are members of the Treaty, and also the collections of international organizations, like the CGIAR Centres who have signed agreements with the Governing Body to place the collections they hold under the Treaty. In this way, everyone enjoys a multiplier effect, gaining access to an exponentially greater range of diversity than they bring into the system themselves.
Under the International Treaty, the collections in CGIAR genebanks are considered to be held in trust on behalf of humanity. Access is available to all who need it. This marks a confirmation of earlier agreements that had been signed between the CGIAR Centres and FAO during the years the Treaty was being negotiated
Among other things, the Treaty also envisages the creation of a global information system that will make it possible for farmers and scientists to narrow down their searches and find the plant genetic resources they need. It also requires contracting parties to put in place appropriate policies to ensure the sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture.
Ultimately, its greatest accomplishment is its assurance of an easy exchange of plant genetic resources among farmers, breeders and researchers.
The standard material transfer agreement (SMTA)
All materials within the multilateral system of access and benefit sharing created by the Treaty will be distributed using the same standard material transfer agreement. This was instrument was adopted by the First Meeting of the Governing Body of the Treaty in June 2006. Countries the world over are in the process of working out how they are going to embed the use of the SMTA in their national policies, laws, and or administrative procedures. Bioversity, on behalf of the CGIAR Centres and FAO are developing a joint programme to provide technical assistance to countries implementing the Treaty, with a particular emphasis on the multilateral system of access and benefit sharing.
The Agreements between the CGIAR Centres and Treaty's Governing Body
On October 16, 2006, the eleven CGIAR Centres with ex situ collections of PGRFA signed agreements with the Governing Body placing the collections they hold under the Treaty. Consequently, the Annex 1 materials they hold will be distributed using the SMTA. Non-Annex 1 materials will continue to be distributed using the current interim MTA. The Interim MTA can be found in the Booklet of CGIAR Centre Policy Instruments, Guidelines and Statements on Genetic Resources, Biotechnology and Intellectual Property Rights. At its Second Meeting, in June 2007, the Governing Body will amend the MTA for use by the Centres for non-Annex 1 materials.
The Role of the CGIAR Centres
The System-wide Genetic Resources Programme (SGRP) has the mandate to harmonize system-wide policies concerning genetic resources. Representation of the CGIAR Centres at international meetings concerning the negotiation and implementation of the Treaty is coordinated through SGRP. The Centres have been present as observers, actively participating at every meeting for the negotiation of the Treaty and the SMTA. The Centres have consistently made useful technical contributions throughout the negotiations in the form of targeted research papers, policy briefs, panel presentations to delegates and verbal interventions from the floor of the negotiating halls.