Signing of "Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety"

March 3, 2012
Japanese

On Saturday, March 3 (Friday, March 2, local time), H.E. Mr. Tsuneo Nishida, Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations, signed the "Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety" in the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
The Protocol is supplementary to the "Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity" which establishes measures for prevention of adverse effects on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity caused by living organisms modified by modern biotechnology (LMOs), and establishes the obligations of signatory countries in the case where damage is caused to the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity by LMOs which find their origin in a transboundary movement. The obligations include requiring the appropriate operator or operators in control of the LMOs to take appropriate response measures.

[Reference]

Cartagena Protocol: Adopted at the resumed session of the extraordinary meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity held in Montreal, Canada in January 2000 and entered into force in November 2003. A total of 163 nations and regions have signed the Protocol as of February 21, 2012 (including the European Union).
The Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol is one of the results of the 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 10) to the Convention on Biological Diversity and has been opened for signature for the signatory countries of the Cartagena Protocol from March 7, 2011 to March 6, 2012, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

(*The foregoing is a provisional translation. The date indicated above denotes the date of issue of the original press release in Japanese.)

(END)