ABSTRACT
This chapter will analyze the impact of key legal instruments and policies on agrobiodiversity. Focus will be given to access and benefit-sharing regulations and their impacts on crop and livestock genetic resources, including the Convention on Biological Diversity and its Nagoya Protocol (with particular regard to their impact on agrobiodiversity) and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) 1 . These will be placed in the broader context of the protection of intellectual property rights over plant varieties (so-called plant breeders’ rights and the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the World Trade Organization (focusing mainly on article 27.3.b), and of the Seed Laws which regulate seed production, the utilization and the sale of plant genetic resources. It will also discuss the place of farmers’ rights in these legal frameworks, as well as legal options for their implementation at the national level.
