Submissions of stakeholders on voluntary codes of conduct, guidelines and best practices, and/or standards in relation to access and benefit-sharing for all subsectors of genetic resources for food and agriculture

The Commission, at its Fourteenth Regular Session, requested its Secretary to invite stakeholder groups to report on voluntary codes of conduct, guidelines and best practices, and/or standards in relation to access and benefit-sharing for all subsectors of genetic resources for food and agriculture, and to compile them for consideration by the intergovernmental technical working groups and for review by the Commission at its Fifteenth Regular Session, while acknowledging that voluntary measures should not undermine legally binding provisions developed as part of domestic legislative, administrative or policy measures.1 By notification of 5 February 2014, the Secretary invited stakeholder groups to report on voluntary codes of conduct, guidelines and best practices, and/ or standards in relation to access and benefitsharing for all subsectors of genetic resources for food and agriculture. Stakeholders were also requested to point out model contractual clauses used in specific subsectors of genetic resources for food and agriculture. This document contains the submissions in the language in which they were received. It should be noted that similar information has been gathered by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (SCBD) and made available to the third session of the Open-ended Ad Hoc Intergovernmental Committee for the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (24-28 February 2014).