The Convention on Biological Diversity represents one of the international legal systems initial efforts to unite economic and environmental issues in a relatively balanced way within a single legal instrument.1 In fact. the Biodiversity Convention is one of the most ambitious attempts in any legal system to integrate environmental goals with a wide range of economic sectors. The Biodiversity Conventions provisions on trade in “genetic resources”one of the economically valuable aspects of biodiversity-embody an innovative approach to the interplay of trade and environmental concerns. These provisions are based on the principle that trade in genetic resotm:es must take place within a framework of rules which ensure that not only the trade but the overall production process of which it is part are sustainable. Thus while the convention is ordinarily considered a part of international environ..: mental law, it can also be viewed as a sustainable trade agreement. As such, it should be a useful reference point and precedent in the future evolution of trade law.
Particularly innovative are the Biodiversity Conventions provisions requiring countries to take special measures to protect customary resource uses and local and indigenous communities’ traditional knowledge, innovations, and practices, where they carry on sustainable traditions. These provisions reflect an understanding that local economies-especially local economies. where long-standing residents use natural resources according to customary rules that take into account ecological constraints–can be more sustainable thanthe expanding global economy. They also help to affirm indigenous peoples’ moral and political claims to lands, natural resources, and knowledge.
International trade law has given almost no consideration to environmental protection, sustainable use and development, or the rights and needs of indigenous communities within nation-states. A great American legal theorist once argued, however, that there is an inherent drive — however “sluggish” or “faint-pulsed” –that pushes even the most “wrong-headed and arbitrary legal system” closer to an ideal of justice.” In the Biodiversity Convention, international law takes a step, however tentative, to justice in the fields of economic and environmental regulation–justice with ecological and economic dimensions. The future challenge for activists, lawyers, and governments is to put the convention innovative ideas into practice, in both international and national law.