To ensure an adequate level of protection for the transfer, handling and use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that may have adverse effects on the environment and human health, and specifically focusing on transboundary movements

On 29 January 2000, after five years of discussions, ministers and delegates of more than 130 countries adopted, united in Montreal, a legal text officially called "Cartagena Protocol on the prevention of biotechnological risks to the Convention on biological diversity". Often named Cartagena Protocol, it covers genetically modified organisms (GMOs), i.e. every "biological entity able to transfer or to respond genetic material [and] having a combination of new genetic materiel obtained by recourse to modern biotechnology". Its objective is to contribute governing "transboundary movements, transit, the manipulation and the use of any GMO which could have bad effects on the conservation and the sustainable use of biological diversity and involve risks to human health". It contains the precaution approach and in fact a condition for application, as set out in the principle No 15 of the Rio Declaration on environment and development adopted in 1992 during the Earth Summit in Rio. In the Protocol, the precaution approach can be read as follows: The absence of scientific certainty due to the insufficiency of relevant information and scientific knowledge concerning the extent of the potentially unfavorable effects of a GMO on the conservation and the sustainable use of biological diversity in the importing Party, including the risks that it involves for human health, does not hinder this Party to take, as it is appropriate, a decision on the import of the GMO in question […] to avoid or reduce at least these potentially unfavorable effects." Regulation (EC) n° 1946/2003, of 15 July 2003, of the European Parliament and of the Council relating to the transboundary movements of genetically modified organisms [OJ L287 of 05/11/2003] puts into service the provisions of the Cartagena Protocol on the prevention of biotechnological risks. The Cartagena Protocol arises from the United Nations Convention on biological diversity signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and was drawn up to fulfill the requirements of its Article 19.