Unlike plant genetic resources, animal genetic resources have historically moved across borders through centuries of livestock exchange, breeding and interbreeding, making their origins and subsequent utilisation particularly difficult to trace. In this post, Achyuth examines India’s blind spots in monitoring their utilisation under the Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) framework and explores how inter-institutional coordination could help address them. Achyuth B. Nandan is a PhD candidate at Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law, IIT Kharagpur, specialising in intellectual property law. He is also a registered advocate with the Bar Council of Kerala.
India’s ABS Blind Spot: Conceptualising the Monitoring of Animal Genetic Resource Utilization under the ABS Framework
By Achyuth B. Nandan
Animal genetic resources (AnGRs) encompass animal species, breeds and strains used, presently or potentially, for food and agriculture. Unlike many other genetic resources (GRs), AnGRs have historically undergone extensive cross-border movement, exchange and interbreeding, often involving contributions from multiple geographical regions over generations. This makes their precise origins and transboundary movements particularly difficult to trace. Further, shaped by the interplay of biological and cultural factors, AnGRs embody biocultural heritage and reflect the contributions of diverse livestock-keeping communities to their development and sustenance. These distinctive characteristics warrant closer examination of the regulatory framework governing AnGRs under the Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) regime, particularly regarding resource identification, traceability, and benefit-sharing. As GRs, AnGRs fall, in principle, within the scope of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its Nagoya Protocol, aligning with the objectives of biodiversity conservation, sustainable use, and fair and equitable benefit-sharing.
The evolving ABS landscape recognises the possibility of specialised ABS instruments under Article 4 of the Nagoya Protocol. The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), through its Multilateral System for Annex I plant genetic resources, is one such example. Similarly, the WHO Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (PIP) framework and the recent Pandemic Agreement illustrate the continuing evolution of specialised approaches to ABS. In the absence of an internationally agreed specialised instrument governing AnGRs for food and agriculture comparable to the ITPGRFA, the general framework of the Nagoya Protocol, together with applicable national ABS legislation, remains relevant to their utilization.
Effective monitoring of resource utilization is fundamental to an effectively functioning ABS regime, and AnGRs are no exception. In this context, India presents an important case in this regard, as the 2023 amendment to the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, introduced a statutory basis for operationalizing user-country measures through Section 36A. The provision empowers the central government to authorise the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) or another organisation to monitor and regulate access to and utilization of biological resources obtained from foreign countries in India.
Although the NBA, India’s Competent National Authority (CNA), is responsible for monitoring the utilization of foreign-origin genetic resources (GRs) and associated traditional knowledge (ATK), India’s First National Report under the Nagoya Protocol (2026) records that no checkpoint had been formally designated under Article 17. This highlights the need for better institutional coordination to ensure effective monitoring of the utilization of foreign-origin AnGRs. Accordingly, this post examines the scope for strengthening such monitoring through inter-institutional coordination among sector-specific regulators.
AnGRs vis a vis the CBD-Nagoya Framework
The CBD defines genetic resources as genetic material of actual or potential value, with genetic material referring to any material of plant, animal, microbial or other origin containing functional units of heredity. AnGRs therefore fall within the subject matter of the CBD–Nagoya framework. However, the applicability of the Nagoya Protocol depends on whether the relevant activity constitutes utilization under Article 2(c), subject to the applicable national ABS framework. Accordingly, the treatment of activities such as commercial trade, multiplication and breeding of AnGRs must be assessed in light of the nature of the activity and the applicable domestic legislation.
The ABS framework also recognises the role of communities in access-related decision-making through Prior Informed Consent (PIC). Under Article 6(2), PIC or approval and involvement of indigenous and local communities is relevant where they hold established rights to grant access to genetic resources. Article 7 extends this requirement to associated traditional knowledge (ATK) held by such communities. Several local and traditional livestock-keeping communities have developed Biocultural Community Protocols (BCPs) to document their associations with particular breeds, traditional knowledge, and the custodianship of biodiversity. Article 12 further recognises the relevance of customary laws and community protocols in the implementation of ABS. Article 10 calls upon Parties to consider the need for, and the modalities of, a global multilateral benefit-sharing mechanism for transboundary situations or cases where it is not possible to grant or obtain PIC.
Beyond access, ensuring effective monitoring of the subsequent utilisation of AnGRs is equally important for securing ABS compliance. Once AnGRs leaves its country of origin, identifying where, how and by whom it is utilized becomes central to ensuring ABS compliance. The Nagoya Protocol accordingly provides for monitoring utilization through checkpoints, including at the stages of research, development, innovation, pre-commercialisation and commercialisation.
Monitoring Utilization under Nagoya Protocol
The Nagoya Protocol establishes a connected framework for compliance and monitoring. Article 15 addresses compliance with domestic ABS legislation for GRs, while Article 16 extends this obligation to ATK. Article 17 specifically requires Parties to enhance transparency by monitoring the utilization of GRs/ATK through effective checkpoints. Such checkpoints may be sector-specific regulators or institutions relevant to different stages of the utilization chain.
The limited visibility of such utilization is reflected in the livestock sector. A study examining Internationally Recognised Certificates of Compliance (IRCCs- documents evidencing legal access to GRs/ATK; See Article 6(3) (e) and 17 (2) -(3), Nagoya Protocol ) identified 573 IRCCs relating to AnGRs, but only 90 in which livestock was the subject matter, and concluded that implementation of the Nagoya Protocol had so far had limited impact on livestock breeding and conservation.
Effective monitoring nevertheless remains critical. Firstly, AnGRs’ flows have historically differed from the classic South-North biopiracy narrative, as in the case of plant genetic resources (PGRs). They have largely occurred North-North, North-South and South-South, with South-North flows comparatively rare. However, as climate change and other related ecological factors intensify, breeding systems in the North may increasingly seek traits such as heat tolerance, disease resistance, drought adaptation, and climate resilience that may be found in Southern breeds. Secondly, the principal threat to AnGRs may not always be biopiracy, but the erosion of genetic diversity itself. Cross-breeding, promotion of exotic breeds, inadequate documentation of local breeds, industrial production systems and an efficiency-driven approach to breeding can progressively dilute or displace locally adapted GRs. Monitoring utilization is therefore relevant not only to detecting potential ABS claims, but also to understanding how foreign-origin and indigenous AnGRs move through research and breeding systems, and what this means for their long-term conservation and sustenance, which are pivotal objectives of the CBD-Nagoya framework.
AnGRs Utilization and Downstream IP
WIPO’s AnGRs patent landscape examined more than 14 million patent documents relating to 17 livestock species and subspecies, identifying patent activity across technologies including artificial insemination, sex selection, marker-assisted breeding, transgenic animals, cloning, xenotransplantation and animal models.
Interestingly, WIPO found that patenting activity concerning AnGRs for food and agriculture had received remarkably little quantitative attention, while emerging areas included genome engineering and genome editing. This suggests that downstream IP, although currently limited in some agricultural applications, may offer an important point of visibility for monitoring evolving forms of AnGRs utilization. The following section examines the extent to which India’s institutional architecture can facilitate such monitoring of AnGRs utilization.
India’s ABS Framework and the AnGRs Blind Spot
India’s ABS framework has evolved significantly, most recently through the Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act 2023, the Biological Diversity Rules 2024 and the ABS Regulations 2025. For foreign-origin biological resources, Section 36A provides the statutory basis for monitoring and regulating their access and utilization in India. This is operationalised through Rule 18 and Form 10, which require information on the foreign-origin resource and the purpose of its utilization, including research, commercial utilization and obtaining intellectual property rights.
The framework, therefore, provides a starting point for operationalising user-country measures. The question, however, is whether these provisions provide sufficient institutional visibility over AnGRs utilization, particularly where such utilization takes place within sector-specific regulatory and research systems.
In my earlier published research work, I have explored the possibility of operationalising ABS checkpoints in India, identifying potential institutional nodes, including research regulators such as the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Department of Science and Technology (DST), intellectual property offices such as the Patent Office, and Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority (PPVFRA), among others. Building on that framework, this section focuses specifically on AnGRs and sector-specific institutions through which their utilization could become visible for ABS monitoring.
The sector-specific institutions mentioned above are already engaged in functions relevant to different stages of AnGRs utilization and, in performing their respective mandates, generate and retain valuable regulatory information. These functions may arise under legislation, delegated legislation such as rules and regulations, or applicable governmental guidelines. The proposal here is not to alter these institutional mandates or prescribe a uniform model for their functioning as ABS checkpoints. Rather, it is to explore how these existing institutional nodes could contribute to the monitoring architecture envisaged under Article 17 of the Nagoya Protocol, which requires that checkpoints be effective and relevant to the utilization of GRs/ATK.
In practical operational terms, the information required for effective monitoring need not be extensive. The identity of the user, the biological resource concerned, and the nature or purpose of its utilization, together with relevant information on PIC and MAT where applicable, can provide the core data points. With increasingly digitised regulatory systems, such information could, where appropriate, be electronically matched with IRCCs and information from other checkpoints, thereby reducing duplication in data collection and administrative burdens (see our study on operationalising checkpoints in India).
This approach, therefore, does not require legislative amendments or a restructuring of the legal functions of each participating institution. It principally requires a shift in how existing regulatory information is shared and connected across institutions. Where sector-specific institutions already encounter AnGRs at relevant stages of research, movement, breeding, biotechnology, commercialization or intellectual property, their existing information collection functions could, through appropriate coordination and digital interoperability, be integrated to facilitate the monitoring of AnGRs utilization under the ABS framework. The institutions identified in the table below may be considered potential institutional nodes for strengthening ABS monitoring. (For the purposes of this table, AnGRs is used broadly to encompass both terrestrial livestock and aquatic animal genetic resources).
Consolidated table of potential regulatory institutions for designate as checkpoints for monitoring AnGRs utilization in India (non-exhaustive mapping). Prepared by the author.
Conclusion
India’s ABS framework could strengthen the monitoring of AnGRs utilization by building greater visibility across institutions that already encounter AnGRs at different stages of their utilization without creating new regulatory layers. This is particularly significant for the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources, where fragmented information can obscure both emerging utilization and pressures on genetic diversity.
Such inter-institutional information coordination also aligns with the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF). Target 13 calls for effective measures to ensure fair and equitable benefit sharing, while Target 21 emphasises access to the best available biodiversity data, information and knowledge, including through standardisation, interoperability, digitisation, knowledge management and monitoring.
In this regard, significantly, the National Advisory Board on Management of Genetic Resources has itself emphasised stronger inter-agency coordination and an integrated approach to national genetic resource management. For AnGRs, the opportunity lies in translating this institutional convergence into a connected monitoring architecture, where existing regulatory information can function as a bridge between utilization, conservation and ABS.