The Ad Hoc Working Group on Access and Benefit Sharing under the CBD aims to propose a system for ABS to the CBD COP-10. Based on the current draft, this report seeks to identify a set of key components ("building blocks") of ABS that can help make the regime both balanced and "legally certain" (functional and implementable) at both an international and a national level. It defines legal certainty as one of the core criteria for a functional system and sets forth concrete legal proposals for elements in order for the system to achieve this virtue. As one key example, it examines the meaning of the Article 15 phrase "utilization of genetic resources" and the practical relationship between this phrase and the user's obligation to share a fair and equitable proportion of benefits arising from that use with the provider.
