Equitable benefit sharing of digitised genetic information to span across discussions at COP15

Subject : Environment

Context:

At CoP15 to CBD-

Issues of access and benefit-sharing from digital sequence information on genetic sources (DSI) will be a critical point of negotiations at the UN Biodiversity Conference or COP15 in Montreal, Canada.

The current issue with DSI on genetic resources-

Lack of clarity on the definition of DSI,challenges in the traceability of the country of origin of DSI through digital databases, apprehensions around losing open access to DSI data, and divergent views on multilateral or bilateral policy options on benefit-sharing from DSI compound the negotiations.
Little progress was made on DSI at the pre-COP15 Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG-5) meetings, to advance a refined, less bracketed draft text of the GBF, that will set the stage for the final COP15 negotiations.

Digital Sequence Information (DSI) on Genetic Resources-

Digital sequence information (DSI) is a term used in the context of certain international policy fora, particularly the Convention on Biological Diversity, to refer to data derived from genetic resources.
DSI refers to data from DNA or RNA that can be stored digitally.
The term is generally agreed to include nucleic acid sequence data and may be construed to include other data types derived from or linked to genetic resources, including, for example, protein sequence data.
The exact scope of this term is an aspect of ongoing policy discussions.
DSI is crucial to research in a wide range of contexts, including public health, medicine, biodiversity, plant and animal breeding, and evolution research.
The Nagoya Protocol, a component of the Convention on Biological Diversity, establishes a right for countries to regulate, and to share in benefits derived from, their nation’s genetic resources by arranging Access and Benefit Sharing Agreements with users.

Challenges:

Academic researchers, however, generally share DSI freely and openly online, following a set of principles that align with the open science movement.
Open sharing of DSI is recognized to have broad benefits, and open science is a major and growing focus of international science policy.
This creates a perceived conflict with benefit-sharing obligations, as individuals can access and use these open data without entering into benefit-sharing agreements.
Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity are currently considering a range of policy options that strike different balances between these two important international policy goals.