ABSTRACT
The multilateral system of access and benefit sharing (multilateral system) did not spring whole and complete from the minds of the negotiators but, rather, was built upon a complex history of attempts to resolve a number of long-standing technical, institutional and political tensions between governments in regard to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA). The negotiations were the product of this history. The negotiations of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) drew together two conceptual frameworks for how access to plant genetic resources might be managed and how the benefits might be shared. 1 The first framework – the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (International Undertaking) – had been developed in the agricultural sector (CPGR, 1989). 2 The second – the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) – was developed in the environmental sector. 3 The focus of these two instruments was different, as were their provisions. The negotiations of the ITPGRFA, therefore, inherited a mixed set of conceptual tools that could be drawn upon in making provisions to regulate access and benefit sharing. The most significant of these came from the International Undertaking, which had a complex negotiating history behind it. The political pressure to conform the ITPGRFA as closely as possible to the CBD, however, was very strong.
