Living Modified Organisms for Food, Feed or Processing

In one line

The commodity that is eaten rather than planted gets a weaker procedure: a notice on a website rather than a permission from the importing country.

In exam wording: article 11 of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety 2000 provides that a Party making a final decision on domestic use, including placing on the market, of a living modified organism that may be subject to transboundary movement for direct use as food or feed or for processing shall inform the Parties through the Biosafety Clearing-House within fifteen days, with at least the information in Annex II; that the Party shall ensure a legal requirement for the accuracy of the information provided by the applicant; that any Party may request additional information; that a Party may take a decision on import under its domestic regulatory framework consistent with the objective of the Protocol; that a developing country Party or a Party with an economy in transition may in the absence of such a framework declare through the Clearing-House that its decision will be taken according to a risk assessment and within two hundred and seventy days; and that lack of scientific certainty shall not prevent that Party from taking a decision in order to avoid or minimise potential adverse effects.

The Protocol's own phrase. Article 11 governs a living modified organism intended for direct use as food, feed or for processing, and the words to reproduce are food, feed or for processing.

Why the procedure is different

The advance informed agreement procedure in articles 7 to 10 is designed for an organism that will be planted and will reproduce in the importing country's environment. A grain shipment is different in two ways. It arrives in very large quantities and on short notice, so a case-by-case permission would stop the trade; and its intended use is to be eaten or crushed rather than to be grown.

The negotiators therefore built a lighter regime, and it is a compromise rather than a principle. A student should say so: article 11 exists because grain-exporting countries would not accept advance informed agreement for commodities.

Article 11, broken down

11(1): the notice. A Party that makes a final decision regarding domestic use, including placing on the market, of such an organism shall, within fifteen days, inform the Parties through the Biosafety Clearing-House, with at least the information in Annex II. A copy in writing goes to the national focal point of any Party that has told the Secretariat it does not have access to the Clearing-House. This does not apply to decisions regarding field trials.

11(2): accuracy. The Party making the decision shall ensure a legal requirement for the accuracy of the information provided by the applicant.