Bioprospecting, Synthetic Biology, Digital Sequence Information and ABS: A Review on Global Outlook in the Context of the CBD

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), together with its Nagoya Protocol creates an internationally accepted regulatory framework for access to genetic resources and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of their utilization. These two international instruments operate on access to physical genetic resources and resultant commercial profitmaking as the trigger point for benefit sharing obligations through a bilateral provider-user approach founded upon the sovereign rights of nations to regulate access to their genetic resources. However, we can see that this legal premise of sovereign rights is being tested by how nucleotide sequence data has been accessed and used by biotechnologists across the globe. The nucleotide sequence data offers access to dematerialized genetic information over the internet, and technologies such as synthetic biology make it possible to rematerialize such data in physical biological form and produce commercially viable products. During the last seven years, the focus of CBD negotiations on ABS shows a shift from its bilateral benefit sharing model towards a multilateral approach to capture within its regulatory framework the generation, access, and use of nucleotide sequence data (termed as digital sequence information-DSI) to render it conducive to the benefit sharing objective of the CBD. This chapter delves into advancements in modern biotechnology, elaborating the regulatory frameworks of the CBD and the Nagoya Protocol, their limitations in the context of genomic revolution and the evolving global norm setting process centered around DSI. Summarizing how Digital Sequence Information (DSI) found its way to the CBD agenda as a crosscutting issue and gradually generated a consensus for the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of DSI, this chapter offers a comprehensive analysis of the shifting focus of CBD negotiations in exploring the viability to extend ABS obligations to the utilization of DSI and the benefits realized therefrom in the field of synthetic biology.