Kabir Bavikatte of Natural Justice participated in the second meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee on the Nagoya Protocol (ICNP 2) in Delhi from July 2-6, 2012. Kabir participated at the ICNP 2 in his capacity as the legal advisor to the African Group of parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. The key issues that were negotiated at the ICNP 2 dealt with cooperative procedures and institutional mechanisms to promote compliance with the Nagoya Protocol, the global multilateral benefit sharing mechanism, the access and benefit sharing (ABS) clearing house, financial mechanism and resource mobilization.
At the ICNP 2, Natural Justice and the Berne Declaration also organized a side event that screened the film ‘Rooibos Robbery’ which deals with Nestle’s biopiracy of South African genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge and can be viewed here. The side event included a presentation by Morten Tvedt of the Fridtjof Nansen Institute on the Norwegian law on ABS as one of the first user country measures and inputs from Muleso Kharika, Director of Resource Use at the South African Department of Environmental Affairs. Copies of the film were also distributed amongst the participants of ICNP 2.
