Four years after the moratorium on Terminator technology was reaffirmed by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), proposals to develop and commercialize ‘genetic-use restriction technologies’ (GURTs) are back on the agenda for policymakers and the biotechnology industry.

Public agricultural research on genetically modified crops in Asia is becoming less about the needs of ordinary people and small farmers and more about scientific control and corporate interests. For Asia’s small farmers is there really any difference between a national GM crop and a transnational one?

The authorization of GM corn crops in Mexico and the attempt by the FAO to legitimize this practice are strongly questioned by tens of organizations meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico, in the parallel activities to the FAO Conference.

In what is being described as the first ever and most comprehensive study of the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers have linked organ damage with consumption of Monsanto's GM maize.

Modifications to intellectual property laws that the Peruvian government "rushed through" to enable the go-ahead of a free trade agreement (FTA) between Peru and the US could facilitate biopiracy and hamper Peru's position as a protector of traditional knowledge.

The Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) Policy for Kerala, released a policy that all traditional knowledge, including traditional medicine, must belong to the domain of "knowledge commons" and not to public domain.

Under heavy pressure from Brazil, Canada, Colombia, New Zealand and Australia, the Convention on Biological Diversity's 9th Conference of the Parties failed to pass a moratorium on the release of genetically engineered trees into the environment.

The adoption of international standards for the sustainable production of biofuels emerged as a controversial approach at the recent United Nations conference on biodiversity here.

In a statement delivered on the final day of COP9, the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity requested that all Parties, delegates and agencies go beyond rhetoric and take action.

As the ninth meeting of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) drew to a close in Bonn, Germany the world’s governments unanimously agreed a wide-ranging “de-facto moratorium” on ocean fertilization activities.