Introduction
At the kind invitation of the Government of Brazil, the
third meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (COP-MOP 3) was held
13 - 17 March 2006 at the Convention and Exhibition Center (Expo Trade) in
Curitiba, Brazil. In accordance with the medium term programme of work of the COP-MOP, the meeting considered and adopted decisions on the following substantive issues:
- Detailed requirements for documentation accompanying living modified organisms intended for direct use as food or feed, or for processing (paragraph 2 (a) of Article 18 of the Protocol);
- Handling, transport, packaging and identification (paragraphs 2 (b) and 2 (c) of Article 18);
- The need for and modalities of developing standards with regard to identification, handling, packaging and transport practices for transboundary movements of LMOs (paragraph 3 of Article 18);
- Risk assessment and risk management (Articles 15 and 16);
- The need to establish subsidiary bodies under the Protocol (Article 30);
- Other issues necessary for the effective implementation of the Protocol (rights and/or obligations of Parties of transit);
- Monitoring and reporting under the Protocol (Article 33);
- Review and assessment of the Protocol (Article 35);
- Compliance with the Provisions of the Protocol (Article 34);
- Liability and redress under the Biosafety Protocol (Article 27);
- Cooperation with other organizations, conventions and initiatives;
- Operation and activities of the Biosafety Clearing-House;
- Capacity-building, including adoption of an updated version of the Action Plan for Building Capacities for the Effective Implementation of the Protocol;
- Roster of experts on biosafety;
- Matters relating to the financial mechanism and resources; and
- The programme budget for the costs of the Secretariat services and the programme of the Biosafety Protocol for the biennium 2007-2008.
Full details of the decisions adopted at the meeting will be available online soon.