September 15, 2026, from 12:00 to 2:00 p.m.

Hqs. Wallonia-Brussels International (WBI)
Place Sainctelette, 2 – 1080 Brussels

Presentation Note

In preparation for COP-17 of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), to be held in Yerevan this October, APNU is organizing a conference/debate on the role of the United Nations in ensuring, in the digital era, access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from them, in order to achieve the objectives of biodiversity conservation and global food security.

Indeed, since 1992, the CBD has placed genetic resources under the sovereignty of States. To use them, a company must therefore request authorization from the States concerned, informing them of the use of the resource and signing a benefit-sharing agreement. In 2014, the Nagoya Protocol clarified the procedure to be followed in this regard. Meanwhile, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) was concluded at the FAO in 2001, establishing a multilateral mechanism for access and benefit-sharing for 64 of the main cultivated agricultural species.

But for the past ten years, companies have been seeking to circumvent these obligations of prior consent and benefit-sharing by building databases of digitized genetic sequences and information… freely accessible! Digitization versus benefit-sharing: this is the subject of arduous negotiations within several international bodies, including the CBD and FAO already mentioned, but also in WHO (with the negotiations on the Pandemic Emergency Treaty) and the 2023 Agreement on Marine Genetic Resources.

To explain the stakes of these issues and the evolution of academic thinking and negotiations within international political bodies, we shall have two speakers: Christine Frison, Research Professor at the University of Liège, Faculty of Law, Political Science and Criminology, where she heads the EcoLAWgy Research Group, and Alex Owusu-Biney, Portfolio Manager for Biosafety at the GEF (Global Environment Facility), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Mr. Owusu-Biney will speak online from Nairobi.

The debate will take place in English from 12:30 p.m. after a snack offered by Wallonia-Brussels International (WBI).

The invitation to register will be distributed at the end of August.