The effectiveness of access and benefit sharing in Costa Rica: implications for national and international regimes

The Convention on Biological Diversity provides an international framework to ensure conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources. The realization of these objectives is based on the state's sovereignty over its biological resources and the idea of a fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources. Due to the enormous technical progress in biotechnology the demand for genetic resources increases especially within the pharmaceutical industry and the agribusiness, whereas the biological diversity and with it the supply of diverse genetic resources decreases. The concept of access and benefit sharing takes these developments into consideration and creates a market for biological resources. We identify critical factors which can influence the effectiveness of this concept such as: assignment of property and intellectual property rights, enforcement problems, and bargaining power. Applying these factors to evaluate the access and benefit sharing regime in Costa Rica we identify the specifications of these critical factors which favor economic development and sustain biodiversity at the same time. We then discuss possible lessons of the Costa Rican experience for other biodiversity-rich countries.