ABSTRACT

The composition of the Like-Minded Group was essentially the same as the G-77 and China without the participation of those developing countries that were members of other negotiating groups in the biosafety process. The situation at the international level mirrored that at national level. Biosafety negotiations, and indeed the development of national positions on issues of the Convention on Biological Diversity, have mainly been handled by scientific experts. The breakdown of the Cartagena negotiations, in its final dramatic moments, finally revealed that, for some at least, trade interests guided national interests in the protocol. For the United States, Canada and Japan, the new round of negotiations under the World Trade Organization (WTO), scheduled to be launched at its ministerial meeting in November 1999, had to include discussions on living modified organisms. Many developing countries are also members of the WTO, and therefore cannot entirely dismiss the precedents that are set on these matters within that organization.