The entry into force of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity opened the door to bilateral and multilateral agreements becoming an internationally accepted means of negotiating access to and benefits from use of genetic resources. While providing an international statutory framework for assuring the equitable sharing of benefits, the convention provides no concrete direction for implementing this important provision.
In this work, the authors describe several international partnership s that seek to combine biodiversity conservation, sustainable development, and drug discovery. They present a set of legal and ethical guidelines to be followed in the negotiation of agreements leading to these partnerships, specifically with respect to the equitable distribution of benefits.