NGOs seek India’s biosafety legislation for liability, redress

India should put in place a domestic legislation on liability and redress for damage to biodiversity resulting from living modified organisms (LMO), pending its ratification of the supplementary protocol to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. This was sought by a group of civil society groups during the on-going United Nations conference on biological diversity here on Tuesday.

India is among the 51 countries that are signatories to the supplementary protocol, which was adopted in October 2010 to supplement the Cartagena treaty by providing administrative procedures and requirements regarding response measures in the event of damage caused by LMOs.

LMOs are organisms that are genetically modified through use of modern biotechnology.

Jayanthi Natarajan, Union Minister for Environment and Forest, in her inaugural address, had reiterated India’s commitment to ratify the supplementary protocol, urging other countries to fast-track the process.

"As India is a signatory to the supplementary protocol, it should not wait till ratification to put in place a domestic legislation on liability and redress. The international law contained in the Cartagena Protocol does not need countries to wait till the supplementary protocol comes into force for them to make their national law,” Shalini Bhutani, legal expert, said.

Sridhar Radhakrishnan, Convenor of Coalition for GM-Free India, said resistance to genetically modified (GM) crops was growing across the world and was best reflected in countries such as India and China.

G.V. Ramanjaneyulu of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture pointed out that India had boasted of having two lakh rice varieties, with 50,000 of them under cultivation during Independence. “Today, we get 85 per cent of our rice from about 10 varieties and 95 per cent of it is grown under water stagnated conditions. This has led to series environmental problems,” he pointed out.