レジーム間コンフリクトと途上国の交渉空間

生物遺伝資源へのアクセスと利益配分をめぐって

抄録

Numerous international regimes have been constructed in the past few decades, and we can therefore say that institutionalization of this world has increased. This should be good news; however, these regimes do not exist in isolation, and often influence, or interact with, each other. When this mutual influence or interaction supports the realization of the purpose of the affected institution, we may call it “synergy”; when it undermines or disrupts its effectiveness, it is called a “conflict”.
Usually, the implementation of rules of Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) with regard to genetic resources, is a typical case of institutional conflict among mainly CBD, TRIPS, and complementally FAO and WIPO. ABS is one of three purposed of CBD itself, and the introduction of this system in CBD has been appraised for developing countries.
Firstly, this paper retroacts the negotiation process of CBD and TRIPS, and argues that developed and developing countries recognize genetic resources and biotechnology from different points of view as for their intellectual property rights and therefore have conflicts embedded in their respective regimes. Secondly, this paper shows the dynamism of the institutional interaction at the time of specification of the ABS rule.
Developed countries have continuously taken resources from developing countries; this disparity structure has remained unchanged for a considerable time. Genetic resources are no exception. Developing countries often hold genetic resources, which they do not have the knowledge or ability to exploit; instead developed countries, which utilize superior technology and capital, have exploited these resources by obtaining patent rights, thereby restricting any future use of such a resource. The developing country which is host to the genetic resource then fails to receive any fair compensation or payment by the developed country. ABS is the first tool which can enable a developing country to free itself from this structure and gain recovery.
Now, the main issue is how to stipulate and implement the details of ABS. Here, developing countries make use of institutional interaction as an opportunity for advantageous ‘forum shopping’ for purposive policy development. Using conflicts of regimes as negotiation space can thus be fruitful for them, for it is otherwise impossible to fully realize their purpose within each regime.