28 Feb

87 Countries Agree to New International Protections from Genetic Contamination

Agreement Will Force U.S. Exporters To Label GE Foods

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - February 27 -Eighty-seven countries reached an historic agreement here today that takes concrete steps towards establishing new, internationally recognized rights to protect public health, sustainable agricultural production and the environment from genetic contamination caused by international trade in genetically engineered (GE) organisms.

Although the steps taken were modest - addressing liability, labeling and information-sharing related to the international shipping of GE organisms - the consensus reached by the parties to the Cartegena Protocol on Biosafety represented a sharp rebuff to the Bush Administrations intensive behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts to undermine the treaty through a coalition of the bribed and bullied, said Dennis Olson of the Minneapolis-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, referring to a few countries like Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina who often acted as US proxies during the five days of negotiations.

The U.S. has refused to sign the treaty, but nevertheless sent a large lobbying delegation that worked hand-in-hand with industry lobbyists, and other major GE exporting countries, to oppose language in the treaty that would strengthen the legal standing and capacity of countries to prevent the illegal entry of unapproved GE organisms into their farm fields, environment and food supply. The delegates deserve much praise for withstanding the relentless U.S. led pressure to water down the treaty, and for sticking to their guns to protect the health of their citizens, the rights of their farmers, and the integrity of their ecosystems, Olson said.

The U.S. wanted to prevent any further specificity in the type of documentation that could be required of importers under the Protocol to identify genetically engineered organisms entering another country, said Olson. For example, the U.S. tried to restrict the treaty language to require anything beyond a commercial invoice from the shipping company that simply stated that a shipment may contain genetically engineered organisms. This may contain language was negotiated in the initial treaty. However, the final language allows for countries to require a more detailed stand alone document agreed to this week.

The treaty now also delineates another key piece of information an importing country may require: a description of the transformation event code of the GE organism being imported. The U.S. tried to block this language, which would have made it much more difficult to trace the GE organism back to the biotech company who created it. Allowing this transformation event code to be used will make it easier to assess liability when GE organisms are illegally imported into a country and cause damage to human health, agricultural production (e.g., organic production), or the environment.

A 15-member committee has been established to monitor compliance with the Protocol, while a group of legal and technical experts will develop regulations by 2008 covering liability and redress for damages resulting from trans-boundary movements of genetically engineered organisms.

Olson also criticized the Bush Administration for lobbying almost exclusively on behalf of the biotech industry at the expense of many U.S. farmers who oppose further expansion of GE crops.

Many U.S. wheat farmers oppose the introduction of Monsantos GE wheat out of respect for their customers in Europe and Asia who have said that they dont want it, Olson noted. Additionally, organic farmers face being put completely out of business from unchecked GE contamination of their crops, and they represent the fastest growing agricultural sector in the United States. The Bush Administration failed to represent the interests of these farmers in its all out effort on behalf of multinational biotech corporations to undermine this landmark protocol.

The treaty appears to give the European Union some cover in a World Trade Organization (WTO) case filed by the U.S. regarding genetically engineered foods. That case, expected to be decided sometime this summer, challenges the EU's tough regulatory system for GE foods. The Biosafety Protocol re-asserts nations rights to regulate and reject GE foods for import.

Assessment of Achievements at MOP 1

New regulations on GM exports approved: US, Australia unhappy with outcome

Kuala Lumpur, Friday, 27 February 2004

The conclusion of the first Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety has seen a considerable turn-around from the limited progress made at the start of the week. Significant advances have been made on critical steps for effective implementation of biosafety measures. In particular, MOP1 has agreed interim measures on identification and documentation of GMO commodity shipments intended for food, feed or for processing (GMO-FFPs), established a relatively strong ‘compliance mechanism’ to deal with cases where a Party to the Protocol is not complying fully with the Protocol’s requirements, and initiated a process to develop rules and procedures on liability and redress for damage resulting from transboundary movements of GMOs.

These were never going to be easy issues for the MOP, but there have been major breakthroughs in the past day and a half.

At the beginning of the week, the major GMO exporting countries worked together to slow or block progress in the negotiations. Although countries like the United States and Australia are not Parties to the Protocol, they worked through some other countries notably the few in Latin America that are already Parties to the Protocol. But at the crunch time in the negotiations, the Parties to the Protocol took a far greater role, and overrode the delaying tactics of the previous days. This contrasted with the feeling earlier in the week that non-Parties, such as the USA, Argentina and Canada, were allowed too much influence on the negotiations, including opportunities to speak frequently, and wasted a lot of the rather limited time available for negotiations.

The final line up on key issues agreed by MOP1 is as follows:

• A working group on liability and redress has been set up, with a mandate to report back to the MOP by 2007 (which represents an ambitious timescale for the issues involved) with proposed procedures on liability and redress for damage resulting from transboundary movements of GMOs. It has a far more focused mandate than exporting countries and industry had sought, and elements that had been introduced earlier and which were designed to slow the pace on liability were taken out of the terms of reference for the working group.
• Details on identification and documentation for GMO-FFPs will be left to a working group to develop, but in the meantime interim requirements for commercial commodity shipments of GMOs have been agreed that go beyond just a mandatory statement that a shipment ‘may contain’ GMOs, by urging Parties to require details on the specific GMOs contained in shipments, including the ‘transformation event’ and a ‘unique identifier’ (a bit like an ISBN number for a GMO) that provides a link to enable access to the relevant risk assessments. Although this is not mandatory for Parties, it represents a significant advance, and can be built on in the future. The EU is supporting a workshop to take place in 2004 - on capacity building to help countries to implement these documentation and identification requirements.
• While there has been some movement on socio-economic issues associated with GMOs, with governments requesting that it be moved up the agenda for future MOPs, this still remains a low priority in capacity building activities for biosafety.
• Capacity building activities will continue to involve industry and non-Parties, and since there are budget constraints on the Protocol, there is a risk that groups with vested interests in promoting GM applications will continue to influence capacity building activities.
• A compliance mechanism has been agreed in which members will serve in an individual capacity, with balanced representation from the five UN regions, and some good people have been elected to serve on it.

A sign of the progress here is that the US and Australia both made statements in the final plenary to air their concerns that the mechanism for compliance is too strong. The emphasis is on assisting Parties to comply with the Protocol particularly recognizing the difficulties that many developing countries may have because of a lack of resources and capacities. Its work will be reviewed at MOP3 (in two years time), and at that stage the need for sanctions against persitent non-compliers will be also considered. It is important that the mechanism should be credible alongside other mechanisms, notably the WTO’s dispute resolution systems. Without a credible system, compliance problems may well end up being taken to the WTO by GMO exporters. The compliance system agreed by MOP1 is being talked about as being one of the strongest so far agreed in multi-lateral environmental agreements.

One issue that is coming up in the margins is that unlike many other multi-lateral environmental agreements, the Cartagena Protocol does not specify phase-in periods for introduction of new measures. These could help developing countries by allowing them sufficient grace periods in which to build up their necessary capacities to implement new measures. But without grace periods, most countries are concerned that they would have to be immediately compliant with measures agreed at the MOP, and understandably tend towards more minimal measures that require little effort to comply with, but which also do less to advance effective biosafety implementation.

The major GMO-exporting countries and the biotech and commodity trade industry had worked hard to avoid the outcomes that MOP1 achieved, but did not, in the end succeed. Before the MOP, the US set up an agreement with Canada and Mexico on identification and documentation of GMOs, setting a threshold of 5 percent GMO content below which no information need be provided. The trilateral agreement is voluntary and having such a high threshold sets a very poor precedent. In the EU, by comparison, the threshold has been set at 0.9 percent for ‘adventitious presence’ of GMOs, and even this is widely regarded to be too high. In New Zealand there is a zero-tolerance requirement for adventitious presence.

The biotech and commodity trade had also been trying to play down the need for liability procedures under the Protocol by arguing that existing national provisions for general liability are sufficient yet such provisions are either absent or ineffective in many countries.

An even higher priority for the industry seemed to be to limit progress on documentation and identification of GMO-FFPs, claiming that anything but the most basic requirements for this, such as a commercial invoice, would be impossible to implement. In effect, the industry was trying to block any listing of the GMOs that commodity shipments may contain, making it much more difficult for developing countries in particular to regulate GMOs that they have not approved for domestic use. For many of these countries, there is little or no separation between GMOs for planting in the environment and GMO-FFPs, and so there is a high likelihood that they may end up growing in farmers fields unknowingly, as has happened in Mexico and Canada, for example. Addressing this issue was the prime reason for provisions on identification of shipments containing GMO-FFPs being included in the Protocol. The agreement reached at MOP1 is therefore particularly significant for them, and the next challenge is for them to implement it. Here support for capacity building in this area is going to be extremely important.

27 Feb

In a statement circulated yesterday, a large group of CSOs called on countries to reject a tripartite "model of implementation and compliance" that evades the Protocol and only favors the commercial interests of countries that have not ratified the Protocol - the USA. This referred to an agreement brokered by the USA with Canada (both non-Parties to the Protocol) and Mexico (a Party that has ratified the Protocol). It allows, inter alia for consignments to include up to 5% GM contamination before notification is required. This, in the words of the CSO statement is "in practice to accept the entrance of transgenics with no evaluation of the risks. It seriously jeopardizes the subsequent export possibilities of Latin American countries."

27 Feb

(Statement distributed at the Meeting of the Parties of the Cartagena Protocol, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 26-01-04)

The Trilateral Agreement of US-Mexico-Canada: a "model" to evade the Protocol

The first meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety has the purpose discussing issues that upon signing of the Protocol remained open or undefined and that affect the effective implementation of its provisions.

In this first meeting, crucial issues are being defined, such as identification of LMOs in shipments, liability and compensation in cases of damage and measures for ensuring compliance with the Protocol.

Confronted by the coming into force of the Protocol, GMO-exporting countries that are members of the Miami Group, led by the United States and following the proposals of the International Grain Trade Coalition, met to define a strategy for continuing trade in transgenics without restrictions. They have organized meetings with representatives of various Latin American countries; and in the first week of February 2004, with the assistance of the Interamerican Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA), they organized a meeting in Buenos Aires, with the goals of:

1) encouraging Latin American countries to adopt a bilateral or regional agreement, based on a draft template written by the USA, that interprets the obligations on identification that will be discussed in Kuala Lumpur, in order to prevent the effective implementation of the Protocol, and

2) proposing this agreement as a model for the rest of the countries of the world, undermining the central provisions of the Protocol.

The agreement already signed between the United States, Canada and Mexico states that a shipment is not considered transgenic if it contains up to 5% GMOs and therefore it is not necessary to identify it as such. In the case of "adventitious" presence of transgenics, a shipment destined for export is not required to be identified with a label stating it "may contain" transgenic organisms. The agreement also establishes that the "may contain" language should be included in the commercial invoice and not in a separate document with more detailed information.

These parameters are arbitrary and attempt to set unacceptable precedents for future discussions on identification and labeling, undermining in practice the right of Parties to establish adequate norms for the control of transboundary movements.

The model agreement designed by the United States and its allies gives cause for great concern because it leaves countries without the protection for biodiversity or health that they would as signatories to the Cartagena Protocol. To accept a level of contamination up to 5% is in practice to accept the entrance of transgenics with no evaluation of the risks. It seriously jeopardizes the subsequent export possibilities of Latin American countries.

This type of agreement only serves to facilitate and increase the uncontrolled exports from producer countries and imports of transgenics into our countries, and serves to accelerate the genetic contamination of our region that is rich in biodiversity and a center of origin of many crops.

Particularly worrying is that with this "uncontrolled" percentage in the shipments, there could be unapproved varieties. There could be varieties unapproved for human consumption in the United States, such as StarLink, or crops engineered for non-consumptive uses (drugs or industrial chemicals). Beyond this, exporters are essentially free from assuming liability and eventual compensation for damages, as the weak contamination standards of the trilateral agreement would allow the exporter to simply declare that they did not know about the presence of transgenics.

Without labeling of shipments it is also impossible to obtain information about their origin and handling, such as data on responsible contact persons, which means there is no ability to establish traceability systems.

In the case of Mexico, the decision to participate in this accord was only discussed in very restricted circles and behind the backs of civil society, peasants and the legislature. For this reason, the Mexican Congress decided 18 February to call Dr. Victor Villalobos (signer of the trilateral accord) and the Secretary of Agriculture of Mexico, to appear before the Houses to give explanations on this topic. In addition, they called upon the President of the Republic to comply completely with the Cartagena Protocol.

It is particularly serious that Mexico, being a center of origin of maize, one of the principal food crops for the world, and where there is already evidence of contamination of traditional varieties of maize with transgenics, instead of applying the principle of precaution and promoting a strict regime for liability and compensation for damages, is renouncing with this accord the protection of its biodiversity, agriculture, and human and animal health and has ignored the demands of campesinos, indigenous peoples and civil society to shine light on and stop the contamination.

Being a Party, Mexico has particular obligations to other Parties that it is undermining; while discussions on Article 18 have not yet concluded, they should not be signing any agreement outside the ambit of the Protocol. Also, this creates an unacceptable precedent for future compliance with the Protocol.

Finally, this type of agreement will undoubtedly have a "domino effect" on all the provisions of the Protocol. It threatens the mechanisms being developed to guarantee protection of biodiversity and human health as well as a future liability and redress regime.

We call upon the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean to reject this type of agreement and guarantee complete compliance with the objectives of the Protocol. We call on all countries to reject this "model of implementation and compliance" that evades the Protocol and only favors the commercial interests of countries that have not ratified the Protocol.

SIGNED: Amigos de la Tierra de América Latina y el Caribe; Bloque Centroamericano de Resistencia a Transgénicos; Centro Humboldt, Nicaragua; COECOCEIBA, Costa Rica; Econexus, UK; Edmonds Institute, USA; ETC Group; Friends of the Earth International; Fundación Sociedades Sustentables, Chile; Gene Campaign, India; GeneEthics Network, Australia; Greenpeace; Grupo de Reflexión Rural, Argentina; Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, USA; Institute for Science in Society, ISIS, UK; Jaran, Center for Law and Policy Initiatives, Thailand; Red por una América Latina Libre de Transgénicos; REDES AT, Uruguay; SEARICE, Phillipines; SOS Selangor, Malaysia; SEEDS, UK; Third World Network; Washington Biotech Council, USA; 49th Parallel Biotech Consortium, USA

26 Feb

The first Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety is a critical step for effective implementation of biosafety measures. The Protocol requires rapid actions following its entry into force in September 2003 on several key issues, notably identification and documentation of GMO commodity shipments intended for food, feed or for processing (GMO-FFPs), establishment of a ‘compliance mechanism’ to deal with cases where a Party to the Protocol is not complying fully with the Protocol’s requirements, and starting a process to develop rules and procedures on liability and redress for damage resulting from transboundary movements of GMOs.

These were never going to be easy issues for the MOP, but progress has been disappointingly slow. In large measure, the major GMO exporting countries have worked together to slow or block progress in the negotiations. More...

There is a contentious problem on compliance. Apart from logistical problems about non-compliance being judged by the whole MOP, including those who are likely to guilty parties, and while is the Africa Group is supported by the EU on compliance (common and differentiated responsibility etc), they are unhappy about the EU moving so slowly on liability and redress – the Africa Group wants legally binding agreement.

On Article 18 – Handling, Transport, Packaging and Identification – there is still no consensus on a stand alone identification document for each consignment, although that's what at least the overwhelming majority of Parties are requesting. In the EU, there is the unfortunate possibility that France and maybe even the UK might privately opt for the least possible documentation e.g. a commercial invoice, as favoured by industry and the Miami group, and not what the majority are seeking.

On the Biosafety Clearing House, the US seems already to have An agreement with UNEP to support developing countries to set up a mechanism. They have offered plenty of resources to do this. UNEP/GEF already has a capacity building project on-going but maybe it is now going to create space for the USAID one. GENOK (NORWAY) also have signed an MOU with UNEP to carry out capacity building. But this will conflict with the US work because the two groups are not like-minded.

26 Feb

Reflections on the MOP, sofar

The first Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety is a critical step for effective implementation of biosafety measures. The Protocol requires rapid actions following its entry into force in September 2003 on several key issues, notably identification and documentation of GMO commodity shipments intended for food, feed or for processing (GMO-FFPs), establishment of a ‘compliance mechanism’ to deal with cases where a Party to the Protocol is not complying fully with the Protocol’s requirements, and starting a process to develop rules and procedures on liability and redress for damage resulting from transboundary movements of GMOs.

These were never going to be easy issues for the MOP, but progress has been disappointingly slow. In large measure, the major GMO exporting countries have worked together to slow or block progress in the negotiations. Although countries like the United States and Australia are not Parties to the Protocol, they have worked through a some other countries – notably the few in Latin America that are already Parties to the Protocol. Before the MOP, the US set up an agreement with Canada and Mexico on identification and documentation of GMOs, setting a threshold of 5 percent GMO content below which no information need be provided. The trilateral agreement is voluntary and having such a high threshold sets a very poor precedent. In the EU, by comparison, the threshold has been set at 0.9 percent for ‘adventitious presence’ of GMOs, and even this is widely regarded to be too high. In New Zealand there is a zero-tolerance requirement for adventitious presence.

In particular, Brazil and to a lesser extent Mexico, which have ratified the Protocol, have been pushing positions favoured by the US, which has not even signed the Protocol and other former “Miami Group’ members (Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Uruguay, none of whom have ratified the Protocol). In previous meetings Brazil and Mexico, amongst other countries, have been far more supportive of effective measures to promote biosafety. Countries that are Parties to the Protocol have full rights to participate in discussions, but there is a growing feeling that non-Parties, such as the USA, Argentina and Canada, have been allowed too much influence on the negotiations, including opportunities to speak frequently, and that this has wasted a lot of the rather limited time available for negotiations.

The biotech and commodity trade industry is also very prominent at the MOP, and has made interventions and even proposed text during the working groups and contact groups where most of the negotiating is done. The industry has been trying to play down the need for liability procedures under the Protocol by arguing that existing national provisions for general liability are sufficient – yet such provisions are either absent or ineffective in many countries.

An even higher priority for the industry seems to be to limit progress on documentation and identification of GMO-FFPs, claiming that anything but the most basic requirements for this, such as a commercial invoice, would be impossible to implement. In effect, the industry is trying to block any listing of the GMOs that commodity shipments may contain, making it much more difficult for developing countries in particular to regulate GMOs that they have not approved for domestic use. For many of these countries, there is little or no separation between GMOs for planting in the environment and GMO-FFPs, and so there is a high likelihood that they may end up growing in farmers fields unknowingly, as has happened in Mexico and Canada, for example. Addressing this issue was the prime reason for provisions on identification of shipments containing GMO-FFPs being included in the Protocol.

As the MOP approaches its final stages, where decisions must be made one way or the other, here is the line up on key issues and likely outcome:

• A working group on liability and redress is likely to be set up, with a mandate to report back to the MOP by 2007 (which represents an ambitious timescale for the issues involved) with proposed procedures on liability and redress for damage resulting from transboundary movements of GMOs. If agreed, this will be a positive result, and efforts by some exporting countries and industry to slow the pace on liability will have come to nothing.
• Details on identification and documentation for GMO-FFPs will be left to a working group to develop, but in the meantime mandatory interim requirements for commercial commodity shipments of GMOs look likely to be weak – possibly nothing more than a statement that a shipment ‘may contain’ GMOs, without any indication of which GMOs it may contain. However, strong efforts to go further appear to be succeeding, and a reference is likely to be incorporated that ‘urges’ Parties to require details on the specific GMOs contained in shipments, including the ‘transformation event’ and a ‘unique identifier’ (a bit like an ISBN number for a GMO) that provides a link to enable access to the relevant risk assessments. Although this is not mandatory for Parties, it represents a significant advance, and can be built on in the future.
• While there has been some movement on socio-economic issues associated with GMOs, with governments requesting that it be moved up the agenda for future MOPs, this still remains a low priority in capacity building activities for biosafety.
• Capacity building activities will continue to involve industry and non-Parties, and since there are budget constraints on the Protocol, there is a risk that groups with vested interests in promoting GM applications will continue to influence capacity building activities.
• A compliance mechanism will be established, but is likely to be comparatively weak. While the emphasis is on assisting Parties to comply with the Protocol – particularly recognizing the difficulties that many developing countries may have because of a lack of resources and capacities – it is also important that the mechanism should be credible alongside other mechanisms, notably the WTO’s dispute resolution systems. Without a credible system, compliance problems may well end up being taken to the WTO by GMO exporters.

One issue that is coming up in the margins is that unlike many other multi-lateral environmental agreements, the Cartagena Protocol does not specify phase-in periods for introduction of new measures. These could help developing countries by allowing them sufficient grace periods in which to build up their necessary capacities to implement new measures. But without grace periods, most countries are concerned that they would have to be immediately compliant with measures agreed at the MOP, and understandably tend towards more minimal measures that require little effort to comply with, but which also do less to advance effective biosafety implementation.

25 Feb

UK Food Group briefing paper for the Biosafety Protocol negotiationsreleased today at the Meeting of the Parties. It stresses that in order to ensure the credibility of capacity building, guidelines should exclude the involvement in capacity building for biosafety of non-Parties to the Protocol and of private sector organisations, including parent companies and their subsidiaries, that may potentially engage in supply or distribution of GMOs.

Also it proposes countries should:

Download UK Food Group Briefing

23 Feb

NGOs state their concern that it is especially inappropriate for some non-Parties to attempt to modify the intention of the text or to weaken its full and prompt implementation and call for full inclusion of Civil Society in all deliberations of the Protocol. For example, they are concerned that the 5% threshold of contamination suggested by industry and mentioned in the tripartite agreement between USA, Canada and Mexico, under the framework of NAFTA, is unacceptable as it threatens biosafety and will be used to pressure for lower standards generally. It is incompatible with the Biosafety Protocol. The NGO statementreflects these concerns.

NGO Statement to MOP 1, Kuala Lumpur, 23 Feb 2004. Delivered by Phil Bereano, USA, on behalf of many Civil Society Organizations at the MOP

We congratulate all the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on successfully bringing it into force. We also welcome this opportunity to participate in the Protocol’s implementation. We have worked with many delegations over the years to reach this day.

1. We urge the Parties to apply themselves at this meeting to actually implementing the text, rather than listening to any entreaties to re-open issues that have been settled. We feel it is especially inappropriate for some non-Parties to attempt to modify the intention of the text or to weaken its full and prompt implementation .

The delicate balance in the Preamble regarding the relationship of the Protocol to other international agreements must be maintained. Pressures to subordinate biosafety protection to WTO rules by facilitating trade without considering other social, cultural, and environmental values should be strongly resisted by the Parties.

We have always applauded the democracy, transparency and inclusiveness of the UN process, especially valuable in this era of unilateralism. However, these processes must not be abused by those seeking to delay or dilute the effectiveness of the Protocol.

Since non-Party delegations do not have the right to vote, none of them should be allowed to undermine the efforts of Parties to carry out the Protocol’s provisions. We urge that non-Party countries not be given special privileges or deference in the MOP processes.

We have concerns about Articles 24 and 14 of the Protocol that allow bilateral and/or regional arrangements between Parties and non-Parties. We condemn the tripartite initiative between the United States and Canada (non-Party countries) and Mexico (a Party country), made within the framework of NAFTA concerning documentation for genetically modified organisms destined for human or animal consumption or processing. This is claimed to be compatible with the Cartagena objectives but in our view violates it “by allowing a lower degree of protection than in the Protocol.” The 5% threshold of contamination suggested by industry and mentioned in the tripartite agreement is unacceptable as it threatens biosafety and will be used to pressure for lower standards generally.

2. The Protocol has been widely praised for setting up decision-making procedures based on the Precautionary Principle, recognizing the inherent sovereignty of every country to control what crosses its borders. But experience and further discussions will be necessary to ensure that the processes of granting Advanced Informed Agreement are based on full and transparent risk assessment practices. These assessments must take into account the real socio-economic impacts that will result from transboundary movements of LMOs.

We are, therefore, concerned that the draft for the Medium Term Work Plan postpones consideration of public participation to the Third MOP and socio-economic impacts to the Fourth. These issues are far too important to

4. We would like to bring attention to an issue of procedure: text has been included in document UNEP/CBD/BS/COP-MOP/1/6, Annex II that was not approved by ICCP 3--specifically, paragraph 9 (j)-(w), on page 23. We call on Parties to review those provisions and their implications.

We urge all countries of the world to sign and ratify the Cartagena Protocol and to work in good faith for its full implementation.