ABSTRACT
With the development and commercialization of living modified organisms (LMOs)2 around the world, an intense debate arose concerning the risks associated with their use. In the early 1990s, national regulation to govern the safe use of LMOs was relatively advanced in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and practically non-existent in the developing countries. At the international level, some codes of conduct and guidelines existed establishing common procedures for ensuring and evaluating safety in biotechnology, such as those from the OECD, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). While these initiatives constituted an important effort to achieve a degree of international coherence in evaluating and managing the risks associated with LMOs, their terms were not legally binding and therefore their application remained voluntary.
