Transnational Corporate Interests in International Biosafety Negotiations

Abstract

Corporations played an important role in the negotiation of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (CPB), a global agreement which aims to regulate the trade in genetically modified organisms (GMOs), including bio-engineered seeds and foods. Industry players — individual corporations as well as international and domestic industry associations — strongly resisted strict regulation over the trade of GMOs. I argue here that this position, especially as articulated by the agricultural biotech industry, was conditioned by developments in the broader agrochemical industry. These developments occurred not just in the agricultural biotechnology sector, but also the chemical pesticide sector. The lines which once separated the agricultural chemical sector and agricultural biotechnology sector are becoming increasingly blurred through corporate mergers in an age of economic globalization, and this has influenced industry positions on the global rules that govern agricultural biotechnology.