UNCLOS상 국가관할권 이원지역의 해양유전자원접근 및 이익공유 방안의 논의동향 -UN BBNJ 제4차 IGC회의 및 수정초안을 중심으로-

초록

As of June 2022, UN Assembly has been negotiating for the conclusion of International legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction since it established Intergovernmental Conference on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction(BBNJ IGC) in December 2017. Especially, BBNJ IGC 3 initiated its text-based negotiation on Draft text of the Agreement in 2017, and the Chairperson of IGC produced her revised text of the Agreement in November 2019. However, BBNJ IGC has failed to reach an agreement even on the core issues such as the scope and coverage of the Agreement, and the definition of marine genetic resources and its access which would determine their legal nature and status. In addition, some thorny issues such as the nature of the obligation to share benefits (mandatory/voluntary), the activities that would trigger the sharing of benefits, types of benefits to be shared, purposes for which benefits may be used, and measures or other mechanisms for the sharing of benefits require further clarification, elaboration and compromise over the coming meetings. Especially, whether the exclusion of fish and other biological resources as commodities under the ABS part appears to be one of the most controversial issues. While the developing countries have made every effort to expand the scope and coverage of the ABS regime, the developed countries have taken the opposite positions to minimize them, with two conflicting interests clashing each other. Finally, the President of BBNJ IGC meeting which will take place in August 2022 redrafted and proposed her further revised clean text of the instrument for the upcoming fifth BBNJ meeting by best reflecting the views of the developed and developing countries with some options, and raised up the higher hopes for finalizing the negotiation.

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