Re-inventing the GM Debate: The Ethiopian Biosafety Law and its Implications for Innovation and Knowledge Production on Emerging Technologies

Abstract

A regulatory framework is among the major factors that determine the innovative capacity of a nation. It may block or ease innovative performance; it may scare away skills and expertise or may reverse brain drain and waste, it may attract and retain investment or lead to relocation of investors. The Ethiopian Biosafety Proclamation of 2009 has come under thorough scrutiny from all sides for its effect on innovation in biotechnology in Ethiopia. While it was expected to introduce a creative mechanism of compliance with international environmental agreements without upsetting the promising biotechnology research in Ethiopia, it conspicuously failed to strike a balance between the imperatives of promoting innovation and protecting humans and biodiversity. Contrary to the claims of the architects of the Proclamation, the legislation hardly entertained any national indigenous input other than adopting a more stringent version of the parent law—the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. The article examines the Ethiopian Biosafety law and its impact on innovation in biotechnology and other emerging technologies that go by other names. It will discuss some striking parallels between EU biotechnology regulation and the Proclamation and in particular the U-turns Europe is taking. Broader issues of the linkage between regulation and innovation policy and the imperatives of expediting innovation are emerging as Ethiopia takes the road Europe is abandoning and even international biosafety regulation is revising. It will argue that the promotion of the responsible development of biotechnology in Ethiopia needs to be reinstated as a priority and not pushed aside as secondary interest.