ABSTRACT
Although biological databases were not developed with ABS in mind, they have great potential to improve horizontal equity in benefit sharing, i.e. benefit sharing between all source states sharing the same genetic resource (see Chapter 1). International agreements, such as Article 11 of the Nagoya Protocol prescribing transboundary cooperation and regional agreements, such as Andean Community Decision 391, already aim at improving horizontal equity by establishing a central mechanism to distribute benefits to member states. However, such agreements cannot achieve total fairness in benefit sharing as long as the true countries of origin are not scientifically identified. In such cases, benefits may be shared by either too many countries if the genetic resource is, for example, endemic to one state or by too few countries if the resource has a transregional or even global distribution. Moreover, the downstream approach commonly applied in monitoring the use of genetic resources – tracing from source states to products derived from the GR – has often been criticized for its ineffectiveness. Likewise, the upstream approach – tracing from user states back to states of origin – poses problems because products cannot be easily traced back to source countries. However, biological databases could circumvent the deficiencies of these two approaches by providing the scientific basis to follow the chain of valorization back to the geographical origin of the resource.
