User:Kaihsu/EnvD3

D3: Financial resources, technology and intellectual property

Agenda 21 Chapter 33 was on Financial Resources and Mechanisms, Chapter 34 on technology transfer.

Overseas/official development assistance
ODA can be bilateral or multilateral e.g. European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). No obligation to reach the agreed 0.7 % GNP or to support environmental projects.

Multilateral development banks
World Bank [Group] = International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) + International Development Association (IDA) [+ International Finance Corporation (IFC) +…]. It has an Environment Strategy 2012–2022 titled “Toward a Green, Clean, and Resilient World for All”, Operational Directive 4.01 & Bank Procedures 4.01 (requiring environmental assessment by borrower), and an Inspection Panel. It runs environmental projects e.g. Community Development Carbon Fund, Forest Carbon Partnership Facility for REDD.

Environmental funds
Multilateral Fund for the Implementation of the Montreal Protocol was set up in 1992, with World Bank, UNEP, UNDP cooperation: art. 10(5). Other examples: World Heritage Fund, Ramsar Small Grants Fund for Wetland Conservation and Wise Use.

There are many funds for climate finance: e.g. first proposed in COP 15 Copenhagen, COP 17 Durban set up Green Climate Fund as part of UNFCCC financial mechanism.

Global Environmental Facility (GEF)
Established 1990, funded by World Bank 1 GUSD 1991, restructured 1994 to avoid domination of industrialized donors, GEF is governed by UNDP, UNEP, World Bank (as trustee) with Assembly, Council, Secretariat, Scientific and Technical and Advisory Panel (STAP). It is at its 7th replenishment (GEF-7). So far it “has provided close to $20 billion in grants and mobilized an additional $107 billion in co-financing for more than 4,700 projects in 170 countries.” In 2019, its Council approved a 865.9 MUSD work programme.

In addition to work on international waters, ozone layer, it has also been used for e.g. 1992 Climate Change, Biodiversity conventions, 2001 POP Convention, Convention to Combat Desertification. On climate change, it manages Adaptation, Least Developed Countries, Special Convention funds.

Technology transfer and assistance
Principles 12 Stockholm, and principle 20: ‘environmental technologies to be made available to developing countries on terms which would encourage their wide dissemination without constituting an economic burden’; also Principle 9 Rio.

Examples of treaties with tech transfer provisions: 1982 UNCLOS, 1992 biodiversity and climate change conventions, ozone (Vienna Convention and Montreal Protocol), desertification, Minamata, POPs conventions.

Art. 31 TRIPs was amended 2005 to facilitate a waiver for compulsory licensing e.g. HIV/AIDS drugs.

Intellectual property
Articles 15, 16 and 19 of the 1992 Biodiversity Convention: informed consent, mutual agreement, benefit sharing, fair and favourable for developing countries; art. 22 rule of priority. (USA has not ratified this due to IP concerns, but in 2016 ratified 2001 FAO Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources.) &rarr;&larr; 1973 European Patent Convention prohibits granting patents in respect of ‘plant or animal varieties or essentially biological processes for the production of plants or animals’; 1994 WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) requires that patents be available and patent rights enjoyed ‘without discrimination as to the place of invention, the field of technology and whether products are imported or locally produced’: Article 27(1). But both allow exceptions: e.g. morality (human, animal, plant life or health): arts. 27(2) restrictions must be “necessary”, 27(3) TRIPs; cf. GATT XX chapeau.

EPO caselaw showed that it is possible to raise arguments against patents on environmental grounds, but success is rare if at all, and there is little consideration of precautionary principle/approach: Lubrizol Genetics Inc. T320/87, Harvard oncomouse T19/90, Plant Genetic Systems T356/93, Hormone Relaxin T272/95. Along the same line, ECJ ruled that art. 4 Directive 98/44/EC did not violate art. 27(3)(b) TRIPs; patent does not deprive developing countries of biological resources: Case C-377/98 Netherlands v Parliament and Council (biotech patents).

Art. 8(j) Biodiversity Convention protects traditional knowledge &rarr; 2010 Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity provides for domestic enforcement of informed consent, access to justice about mutually agreed terms.

Art. 15 Biodiversity Convention protects genetic resources with possible export ban, Cartagena Biosafety Protocol vs art. XX(g) GATT nondiscrimination in trade restrictions: US Merck & Co. contract with Costa Rica INBIO 1989.