ABSTRACT
In Chapter 4, I use the particular instances I observed during CBD negotiations in Nagoya in 2010, and later in Montreal in 2018 at SBSTTA22, as way of concretising the specifics of policy-making related to how these concerns and interests play out in actual observable contexts. The examples I provide are merely a small representation of the negotiations that have taken place since biotechnology emerged as an issue for discussion at the CBD (prior to my experiences at COP10). However, I highlight particular actual events and texts to illustrate both the broader work involved in the making of policy and the specific concerns that are brought to the table by a range of participants. While the cases are unique in the way they played out given the relative unpredictability of social dynamics, they also provide opportunities to speak more generally about the workings of multilateral negotiating fora. Thus, the chapter uses specific texts and examples of civil-society engagement with those documents to develop the dynamics associated with broader current phenomena associated with environmental global governance. Specifically, the chapter illustrates how participants in policy processes view their role in the process and act strategically to influence policy outcomes. In the particular case of biotechnology, I address questions associated with the pace of technological advances in relation to the pace of UN negotiations. The ‘physical reality’ of scientific advances in biotechnology and requests for researchers to explore biotechnology is often at odds with the political reality of policy processes.
