Frequently Asked Questions About Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS)

What are Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) regimes?

ABS regimes are set of rules and regulations at national level implementing one the objectives from the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which seeks to compensate the country of origin of the genetic resources, should the materials be commercialised.

When do ABS rules apply?

Depending on each country, ABS regimes may affect resources that are located and collected in situ or procured from ex situ facilities of academic partners. Also depending on each country, access has different meanings which include activities such as: entering a location where genetic resources are found; simple surveying activities; the acquisition of genetic resources for general purposes or their study/examination for scientific and/or commercial.

What biological materials are covered by ABS?

As conceived in CBD, all types of genetic resources (animal, plant, or microbial) except human biological resources are covered by ABS.

What are the benefits seek in these regimes?

ABS regimes seek two types of benefits: Monetary benefits and non-monetary benefits.

Nationals laws on ABS understand benefits in a very broad way so researchers may encounter conditions including sharing commercial revenue (monetary benefits), or sharing the results of research (non-monetary benefits) like asking to co-participate in the research or preferred access to the new technology developed. In some cases, acknowledgments of the contributions of the country of origin were the genetic resource is collected may be enough.