At its seventh meeting, in February 2004, the Conference of the Parties decided to mandate the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Access and Benefit-sharing with the collaboration of the Ad Hoc Open ended Inter-sessional Working Group on Article 8(j) and related provisions, to elaborate and negotiate an international regime on access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing.
Since then, the work of the Working Group on ABS has been supported by various valuable material reflected in the comprehensive lists of official documentation prepared for the respective meetings.
In order to make this information more easily accessible, the documents have been categorized according to their type (e.g. reports, studies, submissions) and according to the different substantive issues that they address (e.g. analysis of gaps, use of terms, internationally recognized certificate of origin/source/legal provenance).
The following selection contains relevant COP decisions, as well as documents that have been prepared for the meetings of the Working Group on ABS, as the negotiating body of the IR, and for the fifth and sixth meetings of the Working Group on Article 8j and related provisions. An additional section containing earlier documents that are still of relevance and may be useful for the negotiation process is also included below.
