A Study on the Major Legal Issues of Marine Genetic Resources: Focusing on the 5-1 UN BBNJ Intergovernmental Conference Discussions
Authors:   Korea International Law Review, Moh Youngdawng , Lee Changyoul 
Published: March 2023

The 5-1 UN BBNJ Intergovernmental Conference (‘IGC’) was adjourned against international community’s huge expectation for reaching consensus on the BBNJ agreement in 2022. However, the 5-1 IGC has been considered the IGC which substantially narrowed down the divergence between Parties. Against this backdrop, there are high hopes for adopting UN BBNJ in the coming IGC 5-2 .
However, there are still the unsolved issues which require significant amount of discussions. Out of many issues, there are two major legal issues which the IGC 5-2 should resolve in the area of Marine Genetic Resources(‘MGR’). Since the beginning of the BBNJ agreement negotiation, the legal status of MGR has divided the delegations into two groups. One is those who are proponents for common heritage of mankind. This group believes the principle of common heritage of mankind applies to MGR. The other is those who are against this. There have been no consensus at all so far. Without any creative ideas to resolve the divergence between two, there would be a very small window to see the adoption of the UN BBNJ agreement. Even if the IGC 5-2 succeeds in the legal status of MGR, we still have the digital sequence information issue. At issue is whether digital sequence information falls under the definition of MGR. Considering the same discussions in Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of Parties(‘CBD COP’), there is very slim chance to arrive in consensus on this issue, too.
The best scenario would be the case where all the legal issues are cleared and Parties reach consensus. However, this scenario seems very unlikely to be realized at the IGC 5-2. Considering the difficulties ahead, the IGC 5 should carefully look into the approach taken at the CBD COP 15 for successful adoption of Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity. The lessons learned the IGC 5-2 should take are the effective conference management and targeted consensus strategy. The CBD COP 15 managed conference effectively by forming Plenary-Working Group-Contact Group-Friends of the Chair structures. With this structure, the CBD COP could filer out the agenda and focus its time and resources on hard issues. In addition, the CBD COP15 draw consensus only where it is likely to reach. This targeted approach produced the result that the CBD COP 15 left many issues unsolved till the COP 16. However, the CBD COP 15 achieved what the CBD COP 15 had to on time.
Applying the lessons learned at CBD COP 15, the IGC 5-2 should enhance the small group which was introduce for the first time at the IGC 5-1 for consensus between Parties who have opposing views on one issue. There has been not enough time for narrowing divergent views between Parties during the whole IGCs. What the IGC 5-2 might try next is to explicitly agree not to agree. By creating provisions which state Parties do not agree in the issues such as the legal status of MGR and the digital sequence information, Parties could clean the brackets and produce a clean text. When debates seem endless, we should move toward a new direction instead of circling around.