ABSTRACT
International cooperation is at the very heart of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). 1 Indeed, it underlies the whole multilateral system of access and benefit sharing (multilateral system), which is itself a major component of the Treaty. In the preamble to the ITPGRFA, the contracting parties recognize that plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) are a common concern of all countries, in that all countries depend very largely on PGRFA that have originated elsewhere. 2 The preamble also recognizes that PGRFA are essential to food security. In fact, the Treaty set up the multilateral system in order to facilitate the continued exchange ofthese essential resources without incurring unsustainable transaction costs. The multilateral system is essentially a cooperative system that allows all contracting parties to continue to have access to the most important PGRFA for their agricultural development on the basis of common multilaterally agreed terms, thus avoiding the need to negotiate each exchange on a bilateral basis.
