Chapter 4 addresses the broader field of biotechnology, where two recent technological developments are highly consequential for the global politics of environmental sustainability. The first is the trend towards the utilization of digitalized genetic sequence data via big data methods. This offers novel prospects for biodiversity conservation but also threatens to undermine long-standing international commitments towards the fair and equitable sharing of benefits associated with the physical genetic material corresponding to these sequence data. The second development is novel methods for large-scale genetic manipulation of wild species, offering significant potential for conservation but at the price of unprecedented biosafety challenges. The chapter investigates the responses to these technological developments under the Convention on Biological Diversity, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, as well as the World Health Organization.

This Chapter provides a working, legal definition of marine genetic resources. In doing so, the Chapter explores key issues surrounding the legal definition of that term. The discussion is set in the context of the importance of the legal definition of marine genetic resources for the legal certainty and clarity of international legal regimes. Providing a clear, working definition of MGRs clarifies the universal understanding of MGRs across existing and future MGR-related regimes and relationships between rules included in those regimes. A compass in the form of a working definition of MGRs helps navigate the sea of uncertainties and strengthen the rule of law.