This book examines how government, industry and society interact to reach a level of regulation that is deemed satisfactory for the newly-emerged transformative technology that is agricultural biotechnology. It considers issues of risk and trust surrounding genetically-modified plants for the production of food and pharmaceuticals. It describes how regulations have been produced to manage, or in some cases ignore, the risks from GM products. The scope is international and the book makes a significant contribution to the literature in this growing field of interest.

Within the context of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (CPB) was established as an implementing agreement. The CPB is an international agreement establishing the rights of recipient countries to be notified of and to approve or reject the domestic import and/or production of living modified organisms (LMOs). Decisions regarding import/production are to be on the basis of a biosafety assessment. Article 26.1 of the CPB allows for the (optional) inclusion of socio-economic considerations (SECs) into that biosafety assessment process. This book...