| The combined effect of Articles 3 and 15.1 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity 1992 is that nations have sovereign rights over their genetic resources and that the authority to determine access to such resources rests with the national government. Furthermore, Articles 15.4, 15.5 and 15.7 of the CBD provide that access should be on mutually agreed terms, subject to the fair and equitable sharing of “the benefits arising from the commercial and other utilization of genetic resources”, and requires the prior informed consent of the Contracting Party providing such resources. This paper examines the legislation enacted in selected Asian countries to entrench the rights under the Convention through dedicated access and benefit sharing laws. It also looks at how onfulfilment of the conditions imposed by such laws would impact on the grant of patents or other right resulting from research on genetic resources of these countries. The paper analyses the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement to determine whether the attempts at providing a nexus between the patent law and the CBD contravenes TRIPS obligations. The paper concludes with a call for an Asian initiative for a more effective access and benefit sharing code in the absence of internationally agreed norms. |