ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to identify the role of the International Agricultural Research Centres (IARCs) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) in overcoming the collective action problems that are associated with the implementation of the multilateral system of access and benefit sharing (multilateral system). These centres constitute a network of 15 institutions located in different parts of the world and hold collections of crop genetic resources from various countries. They are major players in the community of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA), and their role has been acknowledged in the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) in several provisions – in particular, in Article 15 as supporting components of the Treaty and its multilateral system. 1 More interestingly, it can be argued that the multilateral system and all of its innovative elements have been made possible thanks, among other things, to the very existence of the IARCs, which were already freely distributing across borders material coming from different regions. In other words, the ITPGRFA has formalized an orientation that was already de facto pre-existing.
