A two decades-old international agreement on ensuring public scrutiny of decisions on the release of GMOs will take effect in April after achieving enough ratifications, the UN said. Amid fears over the risks to human health and the environment posed by GMOs, a group of countries agreed in 2005 to spell out the right to participate in decisions around the release and commercialisation of the organisms. On January 20, Ukraine became the latest country to ratify the GMO-related amendment to the Aarhus Convention — a legally-binding text that provides for justice in environmental matters — bringing the number of ratifications to 33. That number allows the agreement to enter into force. The amendment, which requires “public participation in decisions on the deliberate release into the environment and placing on the market of genetically modified organisms” will take effect on April 20. This means that the EU, Britain and the other parties that have ratified the amendment, as well as all UN member states that might join the amendment going forward, “must establish in their regulatory framework effective means to ensure transparency and public participation in related decisions”, it said. The Guardian (Nigeria)

 

 

Dr Angelika Hilbeck takes us on a fascinating journey through the early stages of genetic engineering in agriculture, highlighting the flaws in the very essence of the approach – its reductionist approach to ecological relationships – which has not changed with CRISPR/Cas and new genetic engineering techniques. She explains how the promises of genetic engineering have been consistently exaggerated, and despite vast investments in the development of GM crops for agriculture, they have fallen short of expectations. She asks whether it is not only the considerable ecological risks of the technologies that make them a questionable bet for the future of agriculture, but the poor ratio of investment to results of the whole biotech endeavour. Critical Scientists Switzerland

 

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