Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 5 • Number 19 • 28th October 2005
South Africa Considers Amendments to Biotech Laws
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A Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) Amendment Bill was introduced into the South African Parliament on 14 October in an attempt to ensure that the country, which is the only country in Africa to have commercialised GMOs, complies with its obligations as a signatory of the Cartagena Protocol. The amendments to the 1997 Genetically Modified Organisms Act extend the rules to include the export of GMOs and the establishment of a Biosafety Clearing-House. Civil society groups criticised the new Bill for failing to address the many problems in South Africa’s regulatory system for GMOs. The bill “does not go far enough to ensure that South Africans’ Constitutional right to a safe environment is upheld and that livelihoods are not threatened,” BioWatch South Africa director Leslie Liddell said. In particular, NGOs have pointed to the failure to incorporate the precautionary principle into the principles for decision-making; the absence of a mechanism for liability and redress; the lack of a clear and obligatory procedure and mechanism for meaningful public participation and access to information around decisions to grant GM permits; the lack of post-commercialisation monitoring of impacts of GMOs on human and animal health; and the absence of a requirement for an independent risk assessment process prior to commercial approval as problematic aspects of the current regime that have not been addressed in the new law.
The draft Bill is available at http://www.polity.org.za/pdf/DraftGenetModOrgAB.pdf
A report from the African Centre for Biosafety on the Amendment Bill is available at http://www.biosafetyafrica.net/_DOCS/ACBCommentsGMOAmendmentBill.pdf
“GMO Amendment Bill Tabled In Parliament Doesn’t Go Far Enough,” BIOWATCH, 18 October 2005; ” GMO Amendment Bill tabled,” THE CITIZEN, 18 October 2005.
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