ABSTRACT
The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (BP) is the first protocol to be negotiated under the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD). This chapter examines the emergence of the Advance informed agreement (AIA) as an international norm in the trade and environment context, starting with its origins in "informed consent" around the mid-20th century. It also examines the conceptual components of AIA/informed consent as they have been applied in biomedicine and other international treaties, highlighting the interpretive and practical challenges, and consequent strengths and weaknesses, of their application in the biodiversity context. Prior informed consent as a norm came together around the mid-20th century out of legal, moral, and economic origins. The Basel mechanism, Pesticides in International Trade (PIC) procedure, and AIA procedure are means for obtaining and disseminating the decisions of importing countries about proposed imports and for ensuring exporter compliance with those decisions.
