Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 5 • Number 21 • 25th November 2005

Expert Group Indentifies Gaps in Biotech Risk Assessment

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The Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group (AHTEG) On Risk Assessment Under The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, meeting on 15-18 November in Rome, Italy, concluded that countries need additional guidance and assistance in order to base their decisions whether to import living modified organisms (LMOs) on an adequate assessment of all the risks. The risk assessment process, which is spelled out in Annex III of the Protocol which was negotiated under the auspices of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), is aimed at ensuring that all parties are able to base advance informed agreement (AIA) decisions to import LMOs upon an accurate analysis of environmental, health and socio-economic risks. However, the fifteen country representatives pointed to specific LMOs or types of risk in which international guidelines, academic work and scientific research is lacking. At the same time, the AHTEG recognised that the capacity to implement a thorough risk assessment of LMOs is linked to the level of development of the country in question. A paper prepared by the CBD Secretariat showed that although the EU and Eastern European countries have for the most part implemented the full risk assessment described in the Annex, African, Latin American and Caribbean countries either did not submit their interim national reports on implementation of the Protocol or reported that they did not have the capacity to undergo the full risk assessment process. In addition, discussion revolved more broadly around the special needs of assessing the risk of LMOs in the context of the import approval process, a discussion which could enable the Parties to gain ownership over the risk assessment process set out in the Protocol and thereby augment their motivation to enhance national assessment frameworks. The meeting prepared a report that will go to the Meeting of the Parties (MOP) to the Cartagena Protocol in March 2005 as an information document, while the Secretariat will prepare recommendations to the MOP based on discussions of the meeting.

Documents from the meeting are available at http://www.biodiv.org/doc/meeting.aspx?mtg=TEGRA-01

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