Activists seek new law on GM crop trials

Even as the Indian government has expressed its willingness to ratify the Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur supplementary protocol on biosafety, the potential stakeholders in the system feel there is not enough internal regulatory framework to thwart the damage from the transboundary movement of living modified organisms (LMOs). They are particularly opposing the field trials of genetically modified (GM) crops in the absence of a regulation on liability and redress.

Various social activists, including non-government organisations (NGOs), are now pressing for a domestic legislation to handle the liabilities and redress of LMOs pending ratification of the protocol.

The issue of liability and redress for damage resulting from the transboundary movements of LMOs was one of the themes on the agenda during the negotiation of the Biosafety Protocol. The negotiators were, however, unable to reach any consensus regarding the details of a liability regime under the Protocol. The matter was, nevertheless, considered both critical and urgent. As a result, an enabling clause to that effect was included in the final text of the Protocol through Article 27. The Article said, “The Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to this Protocol shall, at its first meeting, adopt a process with respect to the appropriate elaboration of international rules and procedures in the field of liability and redress for damage resulting from transboundary movements of living modified organisms, analysing and taking due account of the ongoing processes in international law on these matters, and shall endeavour to complete this process within four years.”

Accordingly, the first meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Protocol (COP-MOP) established an Open-ended Ad Hoc Working Group of Legal and Technical Experts on Liability and Redress to fulfill the mandate under Article 27.

The Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur supplementary protocol on liability and redress to the Cartagena protocol on biosafety closed for signature in March 2012 with a total of 51 signatories, including India. The supplementary protocol dealt with the liability and redress on damage resulting from LMOs.

“Once you have signed it, you don’t need a supplementary ratification to go ahead with your domestic law. Very legitimately as an exercise of national sovereignty, we can implement a national law which we already have,” Shalini Bhutani of India-based international non-government organisation GRAIN said on the sidelines of the ongoing UN conference on biodiversity in Hyderabad.  According to her, India already has the National Biological Diversity Act 2002, which clearly had a provision to deal with the possible risks associated with the application of modern biotechnology.

Sridhar Radhakrishnan, convenor of Coalition for GM-free India, said that the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, an apex body constituted in the ministry of environment and forests for manufacture, use, import, export and storage of hazardous microorganisms, GE organisms or cells, had recommended Bt brinjal for commercial cultivation in 2009, post which the ministry of environment and forests had declared a moratorium on Bt brinjal in 2010.

“While public debate around Bt brinjal and its eventual moratorium has resulted in a pause on the commercialisation of GM crops in India, open-air field trials still continue. There is a growing controversy around the open-air field trials of GM crops, especially GM corn, which are taking place in the country,” he said.