private corporations.  The principles of environmen­tal protection or human development are not central to TRIPS and are in fact marginalized by it, although there are references to or exemptions made on behalf of the environment, human and animal health and public order.
     The establishment of the CBD was prompted mainly by the growing concern about the rapid worldwide loss of biodiversity, recognition of the important role of tra­ditional knowledge and the rights of local communities that developed and hold the knowledge and the need to regulate access to and the sharing of benefits deriving from the conservation and sustainable use of biodiver­sity, including genetic diversity. One of the CBD's cen­tral aspects is to the recognition of the need to regulate the behavior and effects of private corporations and researchers and constrain their rights of access and ben­efits within a larger framework that stresses the goals of environmental protection and the rights of sovereign states to their resources and the rights of local com­munities within them. Many of the tensions betweens TRIPS and CBD stem from these differences in the over­all rationale and framework of the two regimes.
•   National sovereignty versus rights of foreign IPR hold­ers. Based on the principle of national sovereignty en­shrined in the CBD, countries have the right to regu­late access of foreigners to biological resources and knowledge and to determine benefit sharing arrange­ments. TRIPS enables persons or institutions to patent a country's biological resources (or knowledge relating to such resources) in countries outside the country of origin of the resources or knowledge. In this manner, TRIPS facilitates the conditions for misappropriation of ownership or rights over living organisms, knowledge and processes on the use of biodiversity takes place. The sovereignty of developing countries over their resources and over their right to exploit or use their resources, as well as to determine access and benefit sharing arrange­ments, is compromised.
•   Conflict between private rights of IPRs holders and community rights of traditional knowledge holders. In the preamble of TRIPS, it is recognized that "intellec­tual property rights are private rights". In TRIPS, the award of IPRs over products or processes confers pri­vate ownership over the rights to make, sell or use the product or to use the process (or sell the products of that process). This system of exclusive and private rights is at odds with the traditional social and economic system in which local communities make use of and develop and nurture, biodiversity. For example, seeds and knowl­edge on crop varieties and medicinal plants are usually freely exchanged within the community. Knowledge is not confined or exclusive to individuals but shared and held collectively and passed on and added to from gen­eration to generation and also from locality to locality. The CBD has several provisions that acknowledge this and also that aim at protecting community rights, the key provision being Article 8(j).
•   Differing treatment of innovators using modern knowl­edge and traditional knowledge. Related to the different ways in which the CBD and TRIPS treat private and

community rights is the difference in their treatment of knowledge holders or innovators using modern and traditional technology. Whilst the CBD adequately rec­ognizes the nature and crucial role of traditional knowl­edge and practices in biodiversity conservation and use (for example, see article 8(j) of the CBD), TRIPS is con­structed in ways that effectively deny this and instead rewards additions to knowledge (even if very slight and minor) made through modern technology. This different treatment for modern technology and traditional knowl­edge is also associated with discrimination against local community rights.
•   System of prior informed consent of states and com­munities (under CBD) versus unilateral patent actions by private companies and researchers (under TRIPS). Article 15.4 of the CBD states that "access to genetic resources shall be subject to prior informed consent of the Contracting Party providing such resources, unless otherwise determined by that Party." Thus, intending collectors of biological resources or of knowledge relat­ing to these have to provide sufficient information of their work and how it is intended to be used and ob­tain consent, before starting the work. The PIC require­ment is thus a measure to prevent misappropriation of resources and knowledge and to facilitate fair benefit sharing.
     In TRIPS, there is no provision that applicants for patents or other IPRs over biological resources have to obtain prior informed consent. There is thus no recogni­tion in TRIPS of the rights of the country in which the biological resource or knowledge of its use is located. Thus, patent applicants can submit claims on biological resources or knowledge to patent offices in any coun­try (that recognizes such patentability) and the patent offices can approve the claims without going through a process even of checking with the authorities of the country or countries of origin. Thus, whilst the CBD has set up a PIC system as a check against misappropriation or biopiracy, TRIPS on the other hand facilitates the possibility of such misappropriation by not recognizing the need for and thus omitting a mechanism of PIC.
•   Differences in benefit-sharing arrangement. A key as­pect of the CBD is that it recognizes the sovereign rights of states over their biodiversity and knowledge and thus gives the state rights to regulate access and this in turn enables the state to enforce its rights on arrangements for sharing benefits. Access, where granted, shall be on mutually agreed terms (Article 15.4), shall be subject to prior informed consent (Article 15.5), countries provid­ing the resources should fully participate in the scien­tific research (Article 15.6) and, most importantly, each country shall take legislative, administrative or policy measures with the aim of "sharing in a fair and equi­table way the results of research and development and the benefits arising from the commercial and other uti­lization of genetic resources with the contracting party providing such resources. Such sharing shall be upon mutually agreed terms".
     Under TRIPS, there is no provision for the patent holder on claims involving biological resources or re­lated knowledge to share benefits with the state or com-