A Paris Moment for the Oceans: Dr Siva Thambisetty Acts as Advisor to the G77 and China Group of Developing Countries
On March 4th after two weeks of intense negotiations at the United Nations in New York city and one particularly brutal final sprint of 38-hours, countries agreed on the text of a new Treaty on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ). Dr Siva Thambisetty acted as an expert to the Chair of the G77 and China group of 134 developing countries, Cuba, on one of the most contentious elements of the Treaty – the governance of marine genetic resources beyond national jurisdiction. As part of the Chair’s team Dr Thambisetty was in the room and helped craft text proposals from developing countries on marine genetic resources which facilitated a consensus position on the part of all 134 developing countries. The consensus text Dr Thambisetty says, was in itself a remarkable achievement paving the way for reasonable compromises to be struck during the tough negotiations. “It allowed developing countries to articulate the settlement they wanted in terms of monetary and non-monetary benefit sharing and to operationalise it within the text of the Treaty.”
Dr Thambisetty supporting Cuba, as G77 and China Chair.
Key elements of this text were explained by Chair’s experts in a LSE Law and Policy Brief (53) a week before negotiations began. Dr Thambisetty describes critical achievements of the Treaty as establishing the common heritage of humankind as a central principle; the ‘BBNJ Standardised Batch Identifier’ to tag genetic resources from areas beyond national jurisdiction; the obligation to report the outcomes of use of these resources in the form of patents, publications and product development; and an innovative approach of tiered fees based on the aggregate use of marine genetic resources, including digital sequence information.
“This treaty has been over a decade in the making and comes at a critical time in the governance of biodiversity and Ocean health. Personally, it is the culmination of a project that began in 2018, made possible by an LSE Knowledge Exchange and Impact Grant”, says Dr Thambisetty. She acted as advisor to the Pacific Small Island Developing States in IGC2 and 3; and was on the G77 Chair’s Team in IGC4, IGC5 and the recently concluded resumed IGC5.
Dr Thambisetty was interviewed by Science and Carbon Brief and relevant twitter threads can before here [1] [2].
Dr Thambisetty with the African group of negotiators.