2019 Volume 12 Issue 2 Pages 19-30
Access to and benefit-sharing of genetic resources (ABS) has long been a controversial topic in international discussions centered on the Convention on Biological Diversity. With the Nagoya Protocol being adopted and coming into effect, as well as ABS Guidelines taking effect as Japanese domestic measures, discussion on this topic is now shifting to reexamine its significance and specific implementation measures. To provide social scientific foundations for future international and domestic ABS policies, this paper sets out the prospect for potential research issues in ABS by introducing trends of earlier legal studies in Japan and examining previous economic studies in terms of the economic theory of genetic resource utilization, economic valuation of genetic resources and genetic resource utilization by firms.
