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Electronic Journal of Biotechnology
Universidad Católica de Valparaíso
ISSN: 0717-3458
Vol. 5, Num. 1, 2002
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EJB Electronic Journal of Biotechnology - Editorial
Electronic Journal of Biotechnology, Vol. 5, No. 1, April,
2002 Editorial International
Biotechnology: Diplomacy, Policy and Statesmanship Edgar
J. DaSilva International
Scientific Council for Island Development (INSULA), c/o UNESCO House, 1 rue Miollis
Paris 75015, France mailto:e.dasilva@wanadoo.fr Code
Number: ej02001 The
practice of biotechnology varies worldwide in style, scale and substance. Moreover,
the practice of the traditional and modern biotechnologies reveals shared histories
with specific peoples and cultures. The various types of biotechnology encountered
in different regions vary, in range, from the traditional panary and wine fermentations
to the bio-industrial production of amino acids and antibiotics, and more recently,
to the modern-day development of bio-pharmaceuticals and gene pharming. The industrialized
countries, engaged in frontier-area research in the agricultural, environmental,
legal and socio-ethical aspects of biotechnology, are encountered at one end of
the global spectrum of biotechnology. At the other end of the arc are to be found
the group of the least developed and small island countries. These economically
disadvantaged countries draw upon traditional knowledge to manage and preserve
their environments and to meet, to the extent possible, the food and health requirements
of their peoples. Between these two groups four other broad clusters of countries
occur. These are the arid land developing countries that are endowed with a natural
resource of high export significance ---oil; the developing countries that are
in transition to development and market-oriented economies; the advancing developing
countries that are characterized with proven scientific infrastructure, peer-reviewed
research and outputs such as technical publications, patents, and established
protocols of governance and policy in private and public sector biotech; and the
advanced developing countries generally accepted worldwide as the newly
industrialized countries, and which have proven bioindustrial capability and new
market economies. Biotechnology,
in and amongst these groups, is the common thread that holds together the skeins
of their participation in the fabric of regional and international co-operation
in research in the life sciences that focuses on improving the quality of life
of all living systems, and seeding economic and technological development.
The promise of biotechnology is inherent in its potential use in combating world
hunger; in eradicating poverty; in curbing the spread of communicable and infectious
diseases; in managing the environment; in conserving human resources; and in sustaining
development. However, in recent years, the threat of biowarfare, bioterrorism
and fears concerning the use of genetically modified food are some of the issues
that point to a dark side of biotechnology. Hence the need for diplomatic considerations
and policy initiatives in counteracting the misuse of biotechnological research.
Illegal and unethical use of pathogenic organisms in anticrop warfare, biological
warfare, and bioterrorism tend to put biotechnology in the dock in the public
mind, and thus minimize its numerous beneficial applications for human welfare.
The debate concerning GMOS and GM foods continues to be emotional and fierce notwithstanding
that experts say that the practice of agricultural biotechnology is a critical
element in developing nations and in providing food for a growing population.
The outbreak of war, in the mid-1990s, between two neighboring countries in the
Horn of Africa, as conveyed in a press story, was due to the bite of a mosquito.
Regarding HIV/AIDS, a number of countries around the globe have introduced HIV
guidelines and testing requirements for entry and acquisition of long-term residency
permits. Other countries have declared HIV/AIDS as a threat to national security.
Biotechnology like
information technology permeates through all cultures and disciplines. It reflects
a confluence of the fundamental and engineering sciences with scope for impact-making
research. Truly today, writing computer programs and revealing genetic codes
have replaced the search for gold, the conquest of land and the command of machinery
as the path to economic power. In such a climate that fuels technical advancement,
diplomacy and statesmanship are necessary to sound the alarms of ethical intervention,
to provide for economic aspiration, and to promote and fund scientific inspiration
(Box 1). The statesmanship of scientists and their contributions
to the emergence and growth of diplomacy and international co-operation in biotechnology
has been vividly captured in the well-known classics --- The Microbe Hunters;
Three Centuries of Microbiology; The Art of Scientific Investigation,
and more recently in the Eighth Day of Creation. Raymond B. Fosdick, former
Undersecretary of the League of Nations, and President of the Rockefeller
Foundation captured the spirit of sharing the benefits of biotechnology and perhaps
of UN and other international programs yet to come in his remarks made in 1940,
namely: An American soldier wounded on a battlefield in the Far East owes his
life to the Japanese scientist Shibasaburo Kitasato who isolated the bacillus
of tetanus; a Russian soldier saved by a blood transfusion is indebted to Karl
Landsteiner, an Austrian. A German soldier is shielded from typhoid fever with
the help of a Russian, Elie Metchnikoff. A Dutch marine in the East Indies is
protected from malaria because of the experiments of an Italian, Giovanni Grassi.
While a British aviator in North Africa escapes death from a surgical infection
because of a French man, Louis Pasteur. In
peace as in war, we are all of us beneficiaries of contributions to knowledge
made by every nation in the world. Our children are guarded from diphtheria by
what Japanese and a German did. Theyre protected from smallpox by an Englishmans
work. They are saved from rabies because of a Frenchman and are cured of pellagra
through the research of an Austrian. From birth to death they are surrounded by
an invisible host, the spirits of men who never thought in terms of flags or boundaries
and who never served a lesser loyalty than the welfare of mankind. The best that
any individual or group has produced anywhere in the world has always been to
serve the race of man regardless of nation or color. These words, true then,
hold true today when one analyses the wide range of beneficial applications of
biotech practice around the globe. The
promise and potential of biotechnology have always beckoned. Julian Huxley foresaw
the importance of the science of biotechnology in 1936, a decade before he became
the Director- General of UNESCO. Biotechnology, since the release of the (Lord
Alfred) Spinks at the start of the 1980s biotechnology has been high on the international
agenda of international concerns and co-operation. Attention has been given to
the founding of intergovernmental regional and international centers of excellence
and of networks specializing in molecular biology, genetic engineering and the
rational use of microbial resources. This is natural on account of the global
spread, practice and impact of biotechnology in the cultural, scientific, social
and environmental spheres of human activity. The banana wars in trade and the
implantation of GM crops in Europe have tended to cloud if not strain transatlantic
relationships. Globally, millions have benefited from approved biotechnological
food and health products, and vaccines. Agricultural biotechnology has acquired
a new face on account of innovative genetic engineering, which has reduced the
need for and dependence on petroleum-derived products. Management of the environment
is being secured in the developed and developing worlds through bioremediation,
and, through the development and use of clean and green energy technologies. Notwithstanding
the indisputable fact that research in the frontier areas of high-tech biotech
research is being carried out in the technically-advanced countries, it is an
accepted and encouraging fact that the latent biotech potential and promise in
several developing countries, worldwide, is being tapped and being converted into
reality. Contract research with numerous biotech ventures based in the industrialized
countries indicates that investment in capacity building is yielding the much-needed
cadres of skilled manpower in several regions of the developing world. Biotechnology
has become an employer on the world scene with some millions of jobs having been
created. The availability and application of political statesmanship contribute
to sustainability of the participation of countries desiring international co-operation
in biotechnology worldwide. Diplomatic commitment, insight, and at times policy,
draw upon the rich sources of several diverse cultures to help articulate biotechnological
governance for the benefit of all countries. The
interaction between biotech, diplomacy and statesmanship involves a mix of different
stakeholders as has been evident from a number of international meetings dealing
with international and regional policy and governance of biotech issues ranging
from biodiversity, intellectual property rights, trade in biotechnological products,
to control of infectious disease, environmental management, food safety and biosecurity.
Biodiplomacy and biopolitics are closely linked with the dialogue concerning biotechnology
which can be gauged from the chorus of opinions and views coming from the private
sector, governmental and non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations,
public human welfare agencies and charities, vibrant scientific communities and
a watchful press. Indeed,
this intermix of cultural inputs, diplomatic viewpoints and biotech assets is
necessary and relevant for the emergence of sound policy formulation, enunciation
of international and national guidelines, legal governance, best practices, codes
of conduct and their enactment. In the coming decades, as biotechnology takes
its rightful place along with its other two concomitant impacting technologies,
namely the information and nanotechnologies, there will always be a need for regional
and international initiatives concerning policy, diplomacy and statesmanship. Box
1. Diplomacy and statesmanship in biotechnology
Year
| Personality |
Observation/Speech extract |
Notes |
1964 |
Jackson W. Foster |
- There is an enormous gulf
between industrial nations, with their advanced microbiological technology, and
other nations of the world where it is almost totally lacking. If we could extend
to other areas even a small fraction of the microbiological regulation we perform
today, we could bring about something that could be likened to a diplomatic coup
of major magnitude. The humanitarian and social consequences of such an achievement
are immense. Countries could produce for themselves microbiologically a number
of food, medicinal, agricultural and industrial products which now either must
be imported or done without altogether. Foreign exchange could be conserved for
other essentials. The indirect benefits accruing from the establishment of any
new manufacturing en enterprise are well known --- the spawning of subsidiary
industries and services which, however small, derive their justification from
the primary process. | Secretary,
UNESCO/International Cell Research Organisation (ICRO) Panel on microbiology;
from Technological Carte Blanche, Microbes in Diplomacy in: The Graduate Journal,
Vol. 6, 1964, pp. 322 332. |
1967 |
Sir Harold Hartley |
- The national importance
of the development of industrial microbiology is so great that it deserves the
attention of the Minister of Technology who now carries responsibility for the
welfare of the science-based industries of this country and for supporting new
developments of the growth industries of the future, among which biochemical engineering
must take a high place...Successful development... must take place at universities
in order to attract and train the young men and women who will be needed in these
industries in the future. We have the ability and the enthusiasts if they are
given support on an adequate scale for the complex operations involved. What we
need now are two or three strong centers of teaching and research directed specifically
to industrial microbiology in order to safeguard the future of these industries
in this country. Now is the time to retrieve the position that has been allowed
to slip. | President,
British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS)-1950; and Institute
of Chemical Engineers (1951, 1954) in Process Biochemistry, Vol. 2, p. 3 and
cited in "The Changing Scene in Microbiology Technology", Society for General
Microbiology Symposium Volume 29, eds. A. Bull, D. Ellwood and C. Ratledge, 1979
| 1982 |
Indira Gandhi |
- Know more about the physiology
of reproduction to make family planning effective (and) understand the chemistry
of soils, methods of water conservation, and the genetics of plant species, which
improve yield under adverse conditions |
Prime Minister, the Republic of
India; in presentation on The Role of Science and Technology in Global Affairs
to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, DC. |
1996 |
Al Gore |
- Emerging Infections Threaten
National and Global Security. |
Vice-President, USA; Forum Article
in ASM News, Vol. 62: 448 449 |
1997 1998 |
Jimmy Carter |
- Responsible
biotechnology is not the enemy; starvation is. Without adequate food supplies
at affordable prices, we cannot expect world health or peace |
Former President, USA, Chairman
Carter Foundation; Washington Times, 11 July. | -
If imports [of GMO seeds] ... are regulated unnecessarily, the real losers will
be the developing nations. Instead of reaping the benefits of decades of discovery
and research, people from Africa and Southeast Asia will remain prisoners of outdated
technology. Their countries could suffer greatly for years to come. It is crucial
that they reject the propaganda of extremist groups before it is too late. | The
New York Times, 26 August. |
1997 |
Jacques Chirac |
- Plaide en faveur de la recherché
sur les maladies infectieuses. |
President, The French Republic;
in Le Monde, 17 December. |
1999 |
Madeleine Albright |
- Announces major US initiative
to combat HIV/AIDS identified as a major threat to US national security. |
Secretary of State, USA. |
2000 |
Cynthia P. Schneider |
- Developments in biotechnology
and the life sciences pose critical issues today in the relationship between Europe
and America, and between the developed and developing worlds. |
US Ambassador to the Kingdom of
the Netherlands; Introduction Biotechnology: The Science and the Impact in The
Journal of Biolaw and Business, Special Supplement 2000, pp. 5-7. |
| Bill
Clinton and Tony Blair | -
Progressing ahead of schedule, human genome research is rapidly advancing our
understanding of the causes of human disease and will serve as the foundation
for development of a new generation of effective treatments, preventions, and
cures. - We applaud
the decision by scientists working on the Human Genome Project to release raw
fundamental information about the human DNA sequence and its variants rapidly
into the public domain, and we commend other scientists around the world to adopt
this policy. | -
Joint statement by President Clinton, USA and Prime Minister Tony Blair of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, The White House, Office
of the Press Secretary, 14 March. |
| Madeleine
Albright | -
From microbes to missiles, the threats we face could come from almost anywhere
on earth. International cooperation is essential to respond to such challenges. | Secretary
of State, USA; Excerpt from Remarks to American Association for the Advancement
of Science, 1 February
|
- Neither politics nor protectionism
should deny the world's consumers the right to benefit from technological breakthroughs
in the production of food. | In:
Fact Sheet - Healthy Harvests: Growth Through Biotechnology, United States Department
of State, 21 March. | |
Philippe Busquin |
- The life sciences represent
a revolution in our way of thinking in the European Union. They encompass the
scientific, the economic and the ethical. |
The European Commissioner for
Research; In his announced decision to appoint biotechnology high level group
as expert advisers; 3 May. |
| G8
leaders | -
We have committed substantial resources to fighting infectious and parasitic diseases.
As a result, together with the international community, we have successfully arrived
at the final stage of polio and guinea worm eradication, and have begun to control
onchocerciasis. | Item
27 | -
But we must go much further and we believe that the conditions are right for a
step change in international health outcomes. | Item28 |
- We have widespread agreement
on what the priority diseases are and basic technologies to tackle much of the
health burden are in place. In addition there is growing political leadership
and recognition in the most afflicted countries that health is central to economic
development. | Item
55 | -
We are committed to continued efforts to make systems responsive to the growing
public awareness of food safety issues, the potential risks associated with food,
the accelerating pace of developments in biotechnology, and the increasing cross-border
movement of food and agricultural products. |
in G8 COMMUNIQUÉ OKINAWA 2000 Okinawa,
23 July | |
Hasan Adamu |
- Millions of Africans--far
too many of them children--are suffering from malnutrition and hunger. Agricultural
biotechnology offers a way to stop the suffering...To deny desperate, hungry people
the means to control their futures by presuming to know what is best for them
is not only paternalistic, but morally wrong. |
Minister of Agricultural and Rural
Development, the Federal Republic of Nigeria; in the Washington Post Commentary,
11 September | |
Vladimir Putin |
- Calls for strengthening commodities
structure of Indo-Russian trade agreement, and indicates food products, and pharmaceuticals,
amongst others, as areas where Russia was interested in forging a closer relationship. -
Identifies biotechnology and genetics as the key areas where tremendous scope
for bilateral trade was present. |
President, Russian Federation;
remarks to the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Federation of Indian
Chambers of Commerce and Industry, cited in CII News, Economic Bureau, 6
October. | |
Fernando Henrique Cardoso |
- The Union, the States, and
the Municipalities will have at their disposal a major data bank for the formulation
of policies bearing on forest and soil use, biotechnology, farming and livestock
management, river and land transport, ecotourism, and agrarian settlement, not
to mention the demarcation and protection of Indian land. |
President, the Federative Republic
of Brazil; in address, opening session Fourth Conference of Defense Ministers
of Americas, Manaus, October 17; in http://www.mre.gov.br/projeto/mreweb/ingles/discursos/pr-manaus1017-i.htm |
|
Pope John Paul II |
- Follow in the footsteps of
your best tradition, opening yourselves to all the developments of the technological
era, but jealously safeguarding the perennial values that characterize you. This
is also the way to give a hope-filled future to the world of agriculture. |
Address of John Paul II on the
occasion of the "Thanksgiving Day" promoted in Italy by the Confederation of Farmers
within the framework of the Jubilee of the Agricultural World. 11 November cited
from: http://www.nettspeed.au/ttguy/popesnov11_speech2.htm |
-The
culture of the farming world has always been marked by a sense of impending risk
to the harvest, due to unforeseeable climatic misfortunes. However, in addition
to the traditional burdens, there are often others due to human carelessness.
Agricultural activity in our era has had to reckon with the consequences of industrialization
and the sometimes disorderly development of urban areas, with the phenomenon of
air pollution and ecological disruption, with the dumping of toxic waste and deforestation.
Christians, while always trusting in the help of Providence, must make responsible
efforts to ensure that the value of the earth is respected and promoted. Agricultural
work should be better and better organized and supported by social measures that
fully reward the toil it involves and the truly great usefulness that characterizes
it. If the world of the most refined technology is not reconciled with the simple
language of nature in a healthy balance, human life will face ever-greater risks,
of which we are already seeing the first disturbing signs. | Address
of John Paul II to the National Farmers' Confederation, other farmers' organizations,
members of the bakers' federations, of the food and agro-industrial cooperatives
and of the Forest Union of Italy within the framework of the Jubilee of the Agricultural
World. 12 November, cited from: http://www.nettspeed.au/ttguy/popesnov12_speech2.htm |
| Jiang
Zemin | -
Swift development of new and high technologies with information technology and
biotechnology at the core is brewing a new industrial revolution. |
President, The Peoples Republic
of China; in address to the Eighth Informal Leadership Meeting of the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, November 16. |
| Tony
Blair | -
Told scientists, investors and industry executives that biotechnology could be
to the 21st century what computers were to the last 50 years. -
Biotechnology is the next wave of the knowledge economy and I want Britain to
become its European hub. | Prime
Minister, U.K., Cited from Blair Promotes Biotech Industry, in Guardian Unlimited,
17 November. | 2001 |
Daniel Arap Moi |
- Today, the international
community is on the verge of the biotechnology revolution which Africa cannot
afford to miss... Africa risks a biotechnology gap if we fail to participate in
this project, just in the same way that concern has been expressed about the digital
gap in information technology, without which deliberate intervention may result
in a further marginalization of our continent. I am therefore specifically requesting
that support and co-operation of your government and private foundations to help
us to respond to the challenge of closing the biotechnology gap. |
President, the
Republic of Kenya; in letter of 21 August, 2000, to then President Clinton, USA,
concerning provision of new GM foods, cited in Environment and Climate News, February
2001. | |
Muhammad Hosni Mubarak |
-Negotiations involve balancing
between the interests of developing, advanced, net food-importing and net food
-exporting countries, balancing between trade liberalization in agricultural commodities,
on the one hand and the protection of small farmers and the fulfillment of food
security on the other. Difficulties facing agricultural exports to developing
countries in accessing markets as well as those confronting those countries in
acquiring high agricultural technologies. All this must be carried out within
a supportive framework for sustainable development, environmental and human health
protection, particularly as diseases have become more dangerous and more easily
communicable. -
Our strategy for the coming phase focuses on rationalizing the use of irrigation
water, protecting environment, supporting agricultural institutions in the fields
of researches, especially in biotechnology, genetic engineering, extension services,
marketing and agricultural cooperation, as well as supporting womens role and
the activities of non-governmental institutions in agricultural development. |
President, the Arab Republic of
Egypt; in keynote address to 24th Governing Council session of the International
Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialised United Nations agency.
20 February; (cited in Release No. IFAD/GC/04) |
| Asia-Pacific
Economic Co-operation (APEC) leaders |
- Confirm their support for
the development of biotechnology to help feed growing populations and its safe
use based on sound science. Biotechnology can help developing economies increase
crop yields, while using fewer pesticides and less water than conventional methods. |
Fact Sheet: U.S. Promotes Biotechnology
in APEC, The White House, Office of the Press Secretary (Shanghai, People's Republic
of China), 21 October. |
| Sir
William Stewart | -
I am concerned about the way over the years our national infrastructure and our
international standing in microbiology has been allowed to deteriorate. |
Former Scientific Advisor to Mr.
John Major, Prime Minister, and his Cabinet of Ministers, U.K.; President of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh. Cited in Magnus Linklaters column, The Time, UK,
25 October, 2001. | |
K.Y. Amoako |
- Africa must be part of the
global future of science-based progress. Our most basic economic task is to sustain
food security, possible only by bringing science to agriculture. Africa has not
really benefited from the Green Revolution. So we may have to leapfrog that revolutionfor
ecological and economic reasonsand embrace the next agricultural revolution,
the Biotechnology Revolution. We need a massive scaling up of poverty-focused
public sector genetic research. We need strong and open debate on safeguards,
to gain public support for the results of research. And because development in
Africa has so far failed to embrace modern science to solve African problems,
we need to establishor re-establishregional centres of excellence for science
and technology research. | Executive
Secretary of Economic Commission for Africa. In Millennium Lecture Fulfilling
Africas Promise, 10 Downing Street, London, 17 December. |
2002 |
Atal Behari Vajpayee |
- Calls for responsible
advance of biotechnology which does not expose our ecology and society to major
risks. - We need
a responsive and regulatory enforcement mechanism, which brings together researchers,
policy makers, NGOs, progressive farmers and the government to help ensure that
the benefits of biotechnology reaches all our people quickly. -
The new responsible biotechnology, must take care to avoid a genetic divide. |
Prime Minister, The Republic of
India; in Inaugural Address, 89th Session of the Indian Science Congress,
Lucknow, 3 January. | Supported
by UNESCO / MIRCEN
network ©
2002 by Universidad Católica de Valparaíso -- Chile
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