Nagoya Protocol of CBD, Mechanism to Facilitate International Collaborative Development of Plant-Based Products: India a Case Study

Man’s search among natural resources for food and other material needed for living, including health, personal care, wellness, and livelihood support have been predominantly plant based. For a long time, biodiversity and genetic resources were considered part of the heritage of mankind and were available without restriction for scientific research and commercial use. Plant diversity predominantly occurred in old world countries with significant associated traditional knowledge about their potential value. However, they were predominantly exploited by the technologically rich countries, earning major commercial benefits under the auspices of intellectual property rights (IPR). This realization led to division of the world into biodiversity rich and technologically rich countries and global discontentment on unfair sharing of benefits accrued from their commercialization. It led to development of Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), providing nations the sovereign ownership over biological resources found in their territory, controlling access, ensuring community rights, IPR and right for fair and equitable benefit sharing arising from commercialization. In pursuance, it led to development International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture under FAO in 2001, to regulate access and benefit sharing of genetic resources of major agricultural crops. It was followed by the Nagoya Protocol, another Access and Benefit System (ABS) system in 2010, covering all biological resources to ensure fair and equitable benefits arising from their commercialization. The present article discusses, how fair and transparent provisions Nagoya Protocol can facilitate greater international cooperation in development and use of plant-based phytonutraceutics, phytotherapeutics and phytocosmetics.