Today the world is faced with an unprecedented loss
of biodiversity which evokes new ecological,
economical and socio-cultural problems. At the same
time plant genetic resources and indigenous
biomedical knowledge awake the interest of the life
science industry. In 1992 the United Nations
Organization adopted the Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD) to protect biodiversity and
traditional knowledge. With its visionary principles,
the CBD could become a model case for Global
Governance in the 21st century. Global Governance is
a process to manage collective affairs by a variety
of actors on a global, national and local level in a
complex of formal institutions and informal
agreements. This concept is a reflection of the
growing despair over the mismatch between the
over-development of the economic globalization and
the under-development of a comparable global policy.
In this book the author analyzes the CBD and the
commercial use of plant genetic resources to point
out existing Global Governance structures. The author
provides a review of selected case studies to
highlight the question of the effectiveness of Global
Governance mechanisms in today''s biodiversity politics.