Those on the RAFI list-server are aware that we try to keep our e-mail messages as few and short as possible.  Unfortunately, we seem to be in an especially frantic season with many new developments coming forward all at the same time (next week will see a RAFI News Release that will send a shock wave through the biotech industry, for example).   

We are taking the unusual step of attaching a draft Treaty to Share the Genetic Commons and an accompanying letter from the international working group preparing the Treaty.  RAFI, along with 11 other civil society organizations and indigenous peoples organizations have been actively involved in the drafting work.  We believe the draft Treaty represents an important policy departure from the positions taken by many governments and many other intergovernmental treaties and that it deserves everybody's careful attention.   

PLEASE NOTE that this is a "work-in-progress".  We believe it should be discussed by CSOs meeting now in New York at the CSD and during the PrepCom for Rio+10 as well as within each organization and in each country.  The working group welcomes all advice. In RAFI's opinion, the final Treaty text need not be finalized within civil society until the second PrepCom later this year.   

In the meantime, signing the note (below) attached to the draft Treaty (as either an organization or as an individual) signifies your support in principle, for the essential ideas in the draft and your willingness to participate in the process.  At the end of the day, each party will have to consider the final text and decide at that time whether or not they wish to support it.  

Some have already suggested that the text is less a Treaty than a Charter.  RAFI disagrees.  We want this text to be negotiated by governments and others and we want it to have the weight of law - to become a legally-binding commitment.  We understand how hard this will be to achieve, but we are not looking for worthless paper victories.  We hope you will join us in helping to set this new standard for international negotiation and agreement.

An Open Letter to CSO colleagues follows from the 12 members of the working group ...           

Responses to the following should go to: The Treaty Initiative to Share the Genetic Commons: Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Fax: 202 429 9602

If you need additional information: The Treaty Initiative to Share the Genetic Commons 1660 L Street NW, Suite 216 Washington, DC  20036 USA Tel  (202) 466-2823

Please do not send your responses to RAFI...

Dear Colleague,

We are writing to you to ask your support in a civil society process that will lead to a Treaty to Share the Genetic Commons, which we propose to have adopted by governments and civil society at the Rio+10 Conference in South Africa next year.  A copy of our draft treaty text is attached as a "work-in-progress".  Our hope is that we will have an opportunity to discuss the proposed treaty and the strategy surrounding its acceptance both by e-mail and during the PrepCom for Rio+10 at the UN in New York beginning April 30th.     

CONTEXT STATEMENT

We, the undersigned, would like to enlist your active support in a new initiative to establish the Earth's gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, as a global commons to be jointly shared by all peoples.

Our aim is to prohibit all patents on plant, animal, and human life including patents on genes and the products they code for, in their natural, purified or synthesized form, as well as chromosomes, cells, tissues, organs and organisms including cloned, transgenic and chimeric organisms.

We feel the time is right for a broad challenge on all patents on life and believe that this initiative can rally widespread public support across the entire political spectrum and among every major social constituency and interest group.   

How does this initiative differ from current efforts underway - the Biological Diversity Convention, the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources, TRIPS, etc. - to establish a global regime to govern and regulate the use of biological resources?  Our initiative adopts some common themes but differs in one very fundamental respect.  Unlike the other initiatives, we oppose the extension of intellectual property rights to any living thing as well as the components of all living things.  We believe that our evolutionary heritage is not a negotiable commodity.  While we hail the good intentions of both the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources (IU), their goal of equitably sharing the earth's biological heritage can only be realized by prohibiting all commercial patents on life.

We agree with the position that the gene pool and its products are a global commons - a position often put forward by the life science companies and some governments, including the United States.  Unfortunately, the life science companies have misinterpreted and misappropriated the term "global commons" to claim unlimited access to the world's genetic diversity for the purposes of converting it into private intellectual property.  They have failed to understand that because the Earth's gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, is a global commons and, therefore, a product of nature, it cannot be claimed, in whole or in part, as intellectual property.

We agree with the position, often extolled by the group of 77 and China, that governments and Indigenous Peoples have the sovereign responsibility to oversee the biological resources within their borders and determine how they are managed and shared.  However, because the gene pool is a global commons, it cannot be sold by any institution or individual as genetic information.

All of the current arrangements and consultative initiatives, to the extent that they are based on the principle of selling "prospecting rights" to genetic information and extending intellectual property protection to life, are unacceptable mechanisms for governing the gene pool in the Age of Biology.

The Treaty to Share the Genetic Commons is designed to make every government and Indigenous Peoples a "caretaker" of their geographic part of the global genetic commons and to establish the appropriate statutory mechanisms to ensure both national sovereignty and open access to the flow of genetic information, in the spirit of collective responsibility for our shared evolutionary legacy.

It is our intention to reach out to civil society organizations, political parties, and governments around the world to enlist broad popular support for this initiative.  We are on the cusp of an historic transformation from the Age of Physics and Chemistry to the Age of Biology.  It is critical, at the dawn of this new era, that we establish our collective responsibility for stewarding the earth's gene pool.  

Those of us writing to you today wish to express our strong commitment to the core message and goals in the draft treaty.  We also wish to assure you and our other colleagues in civil society that your advice and input are both needed and welcome and that we fully expect the language of the text to be altered with discussion.  In sending you this draft at this time, we are seeking your ideas as well as asking for your support, in principle, for the values expressed in the treaty.  Could you please sign and return the enclosed form, and contact us with your thoughts at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ?  Could you also let us know if you or someone from your organization will be in New York on April 30th for the Rio+10 PrepCom and would be available to attend a brief information meeting on the treaty?

We look forward to discussing this with you by e-mail and in person  in the days ahead.  

Yours sincerely,

Alejandro Argumendo, Director, Asociacion Quechua-Aymara ANDES / Indigenous Peoples' Biodiversity Network (IPBN)

Bill Christison, President, National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) / Board Member, Via Campesina

Neth Dano, Executive Director, South East Asian Regional Institute for Community Education (SEARICE)

Benedikt Haerlin, International Coordinator, Greenpeace Genetic Engineering Campaign

Debra Harry, Executive Director, Indigenous People's Council on Biocolonialism (IPCB)

Randy Hayes, President, Rainforest Action Network (RAN)

Camila Montecino, Centro de Educacion y Tecnologia (CET))

Pat Roy Mooney, Executive Director, Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI)

Andrew T. Mushita, Director, Community Technology Development Trust (CTDT)

Jeremy Rifkin, President, Foundation on Economic Trends (FOET)

Vandana Shiva, Director, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology

Martin Teitel, President, Council for Responsible Genetics (CRG)

*  Yes, add our organization as a signatory to the Treaty Initiative.

      Signature:              ____________________________________

      Printed Name:                 ____________________________________

      Title:                        ____________________________________

      Name of Organization:      ____________________________________

      Address:                ____________________________________

                              ____________________________________

      Telephone:              ____________________________________

      Fax:                    ____________________________________

      E-mail:                   ____________________________________

Please return this form to: The Treaty Initiative to Share the Genetic Commons: Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Fax: 202 429 9602

If you need additional information: The Treaty Initiative to Share the Genetic Commons 1660 L Street NW, Suite 216 Washington, DC  20036 USA Tel  (202) 466-2823  

-- DRAFT --

THE TREATY TO SHARE THE GENETIC COMMONS

We proclaim these truths to be universal and indivisible;

That the intrinsic value of the Earth's gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, precedes its utility and commercial value, and therefore must be respected and safeguarded by all political, commercial and social institutions,  

That the Earth's gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, exists in nature and, therefore, must not be claimed as intellectual property even if purified and synthesized in the laboratory,  

That the global gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, is a shared  legacy and, therefore, a collective responsibility,  

And,

Whereas, our increasing knowledge of biology confers a special obligation to serve as a steward on behalf of the preservation and well being of our species as well as all of our other fellow creatures,  

Therefore, the nations of the world declare the Earth's gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, to be a global commons, to be protected and nurtured by all peoples and further declare that genes and the products they code for, in their natural, purified or synthesized form as well as chromosomes, cells, tissue, organs and organisms, including cloned, transgenic and chimeric organisms, will not be allowed to be claimed as commercially negotiable genetic information or intellectual property by governments, commercial enterprises, other institutions or individuals.

The Parties to the treaty - to include signatory nation states and Indigenous Peoples - further agree to administer the gene pool as a trust.  The signatories acknowledge the sovereign right and responsibility of every nation and homeland to oversee the biological resources within their borders and determine how they are managed and shared.  However, because the gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, is a global commons, it cannot be sold by any institution or individual as genetic information.  Nor can any institution or individual, in turn, lay claim to the genetic information as intellectual property.  

--  Draft : Version 7  --

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