The pharmaceutical industry and access and benefit-sharing

My contribution is based on an analysis of the voluntary realisation of the Access and Benfit-Sharing (ABS) stipulations of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) by the pharmaceutical industry. Our research shows that on a voluntary basis the pharmaceutical industry realises ABS provisions of the CBD only to a very limited extent. We thus argue for the necessity of an legally binding ABS protocol on the basis of the Bonn guidelines.