Developing a Methodology to Balance Benefit-Sharing: Application in the Context of Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction

The aim of this paper is to develop and demonstrate a benefit-sharing balance methodology which can be used as a tool to help decision-makers to select options in an objective and transparent manner. Application in the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction context provides a useful example of how this tool can be used. Results suggest that sharing of genetic sequence data and research results provide the most favourable balance in terms of non-monetary benefit sharing, whilst the most favourable monetary benefit-sharing options were associated with research funding and salaries. The benefit-sharing balance methodology presented here provides a useful tool and starting point, which can be built upon in the future, to include more detailed information gathered from expert groups to consolidate the perceived balance of beneficial impacts versus burden. Ultimately, use of this tool could help to enhance implementation of benefit-sharing policies/legislation with greater potential to balance beneficial impacts with associated burden, thereby enhancing workability of the access and benefit-sharing system as a whole.