The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and Domestic Implementation: Comparing Mexico, China and South Africa

Briefing Paper
Aarti Gupta and Robert Falkner, March 2006

During its brief lifetime, the Cartagena Protocol has asserted itself as the pre-eminent global regime on agri-biotechnology, but there are limits to its impact.
The Protocol has influenced and informed biosafety policy debates and developments in developing countries and emerging economies, but has not always been decisive in resolving key controversies.
The country studies here highlight that national biosafety policy is influenced as much by domestic agricultural priorities and international trade concerns as by safety debates centred on risk assessment, science and precaution.
Our case studies show that, in line with the Protocol's objective to allow countries to make autonomous choices about import and safe use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), its implementation has been accompanied by persisting regulatory diversity,
rather than harmonization.
Notwithstanding certain gaps and unresolved issues in the Protocol, this tendency to support domestic regulatory diversity and choice is promising.