United States, Aug. 25 -- At the end of the first week of negotiations on a new global legal instrument to oversee the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ), there appears to be a number of issues that continue to divide than unite negotiators in New York.
One of the sticking points of the negotiations is access to marine genetic resources (MGR) and benefit sharing.
In her summary of the informal working group on MGR, Janine Coye-Felson from Belize admitted to differing views on access, including its definition, with some Parties preferring not to define access at all while on regulation modalities, some delegates favoured free and unimpeded access, subject to prior notificati...