Conceptual Uncertainties and Practical Challenges in Voluntary Nagoya Protocol Compliance: The Australian Situation

Amidst growing international pressure for institutions that collect biological material to comply with the Nagoya Protocol, scientific gatekeepers such as herbaria, funding bodies, and academic journals increasingly request proof of Nagoya Protocol compliance. What happens when research is conducted in a country which does not have a comprehensive regulatory framework implementing the Nagoya Protocol? This article addresses this question through an examination of the difficulties that genetic resource collectors and biobankers may encounter in attempting to voluntarily comply with the Nagoya Protocol in Australia, a country that has not ratified the Nagoya Protocol at a federal level. It summarizes the requirements of the Nagoya Protocol, surveys the legal and regulatory situation that currently exists in Australia, and outlines the difficulties and ambiguities encountered by scientists and biobankers in attempting to navigate this system. In the process, it provides an overview of the conceptual and linguistic ambiguities which exist within the framework of the Nagoya Protocol. It argues that consensus models such as voluntary guidelines may be useful for addressing some of these ambiguities and practical challenges, but more fundamental issues will likely require legislative intervention.