Emerging Countries and the Convention on Biological Diversity

Abstract

A chapter on the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) fits perfectly in an edited volume dedicated to multilateral institutions. Indeed, the CBD is not an international organization, if one defines international organizations strictly as demonstrating autonomy and permanence. It rather follows the definition of an international regime, organized around a core framework convention. More precisely, the CBD was adopted during the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, as the sister convention to the climate convention (see Chapter 13, this volume). While the CBD is not, strictly speaking, an international organization, it presents at least three features that are of particular interest and places the CBD in the category of noteworthy multilateral institutions. Firstly, while in theory just a treaty, the CBD has gained autonomy over time, with a small but active secretariat based in Montreal (and consequently distant from UNEP headquarters) described as a “lean shark” (Siebenhuner, 2009). Secondly, the CBD is one of the most dynamic global environmental treaties (with nearly universal membership, a notable exception being the United States), in contrast to the climate convention. Indeed, the CBD has deepened its work on biodiversity and regularly adopted new protocols, such as the Cartagena Protocol in 2000 or the Nagoya Protocol in 2010, one of the latest multilateral environmental agreements to have been adopted worldwide. Thirdly, the CBD demonstrates dynamism by also recently engaging in the estab-lishment of its own policy-science platform (following the model of the IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) that was created in April 2012 as the IPBES (Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services).