The CBD Handbook

At its fourth meeting in 1998, the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity requested the Executive Secretary of the Convention to prepare a handbook relating the decisions of the COP, and other material relevant to the operation of the Convention, as well as the text of the Convention. During 1999 and 2000, FIELD worked with the Convention Secretariat to produce this handbook. The Handbook was distributed in draft form at the fifth meeting of the COP in Nairobi in 2000. It was then updated to incorporate the decisions of the fifth meeting of the COP, and was published by Earthscan in 2001.

The Handbook includes the full texts of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety; the rules governing meetings of the COP and its subsidiary bodies; and the texts of all decisions adopted by the COP in its first five meetings. It also contains a guide to the COP decisions, providing a brief narrative, and detailed references, on how the COP has addressed each Article or thematic area under the Convention to date.

Further information on this project...

Handbook of the Convention on Biological Diversity