Antje Lorch, Ecoropa
After 10 sessions of the Contact Group on DSI, lots of aspects of the decision has been covered, based on thematic questions, and the Co-Chairs trying to bring the answers together, rather then a line-by-line discussion of the text. But some fundamental questions are still open, while some question whether these questions are even open.
The most obvious is the question whether the outcome of this decision will be mandatory or voluntary. Some Parties want a mandatory process, where it is possible to check whether companies paid the requirement into the Global Fund. Other Parties argued it would be up to national legislators to implement whatever the Parties decide at COP16, and - since a COP decision can't be mandatory - there cannot be any obligations on users to share benefits; it would therefore be voluntary. Of course national legislators could decide that in their jurisdiction contributions to the Global Fund are mandatory, but other countries clearly will not ask for that.
The scope is also still open. Who or what entities in this decision are targeted? What DSI should be covered?
In which kind databases? The current non-paper refers to DSI "that is not subject to contractual arrangements such as mutually agreed terms, that is made publicly available, and that is not regulated by other international agreements on access and benefit-sharing".
And while some comments were made on this wording, no real discussion h as taken place. Why should it only be "publicly available DSI"? What would be the justification to exclude DSI, that is kept privately? And if a user or a sector has monetary benefits, does it matter if they used a public or a private database?