ABSTRACT
The analytical methodology chosen for the analysis benefits from a very extensive negotiating experience in biotechnology and biosafety and relies on official documents in order to illustrate the successive steps toward the achievement of a consensus. Pertaining to the industrial, agricultural, and environmental applications of genetically modified organisms, these guidelines were intended to present scientific principles that could be used in risk assessment and risk management. The Uruguay Round brought trade in these products under the umbrella of the World Trade Organization; they are fundamentally treated like other goods in the trade regime. The 1995 Madrid meeting, therefore, represents the historic starting point of multilateral negotiations with the explicit purpose of creating a binding Biosafety Protocol (BP). The resumption of the Extraordinary Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (EXCOP) discussions in Montreal after the Cartagena failure represented the tenth biosafety meeting on the long road to the BP.
