The 14th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meets in November 2018 against the backdrop of ever-increasing biodiversity loss. The Aichi Goals, adopted in 2010 for implementation until 2020, will not be achieved. Global governance of biodiversity must therefore be given a new lease of life, and define the tools that will enable States to reduce or even eliminate pressures and threats to biodiversity. The first step is to build a new framework for action at the international level, in the short and long term. This is the subject of negotiations that begin at COP 14 and which should come up with an agreement in 2020 at COP 15. This Issue Brief proposes different possible legal options for this post-2020 framework, which have various implications in terms of the legal strength and architecture of the CBD regime, and therefore potentially for its implementation.
Key messages
- Different legal options are available to the Parties in order to de ne the future global targets for the CBD, as well as to make national measures more effective by linking them more closely to global targets.
- At least three legal forms are possible for the post-2020 framework: an annex to the CBD, a protocol and a COP decision. The rst two options have greater legal force, while a COP decision could be accompanied by strengthened monitoring and review procedures in order to offset its greater legal exibility.
- At least three options are available to increase the legal scope of national measures aimed at implementing global targets: (i) the Parties undertake to consolidate National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs) through internal regulations making them enforceable under national law; (ii) the NBSAPs are partly transformed into “commitments”, which would be covered by a speci c implementation process within the CBD; (iii) a new “national contribu- tion” type tool would be created and anchored either in an annex to the CBD or in a protocol to make it legally binding.
