Pending ratification of the Nagoya Supplementary Protocol, non-government organisations (NGOs) are demanding that the Indian government enact a domestic legislation for liabilities and redress of living-modified organisms (LMOs). The Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on liability and redress to the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety closed for signature in March 2012 with a total of 51 signatories, including India. The Supplementary Protocol dealt with the liability and redress on damage resulting from living modified organisms (LMOs). “Once you have signed it, you don’t need a supplementary ratification to go ahead with your domestic law. Very legitimately, as an exercise of national sovereignty, we can implement a national law which we already have,” said Shalini Bhutani of India-based international non-government organisation GRAIN. Speaking to mediapersons at a side meeting of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) here on Tuesday, she said India already had the National Biological Diversity Act 2002, which clearly had a provision to deal with the possible risks associated with the application of modern biotechnology. “What a Supplementary Protocol helps is to develop a very specific regime – fora, frameworks and procedures – to pursue a claim made by an operator of LMOs,” she said, adding civil liability was always better than an administrative approach. According to Sridhar Radhakrishnan, convenor of Coalition for GM (genetically-modified)-free India, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) had recommended Bt brinjal for commercial cultivation in 2009, post which the ministry of environment and forests had declared a moratorium on Bt brinjal in 2010. GEAC is an apex body constituted in the ministry of environment and forests for manufacture, use, import, export and storage of hazardous microorganisms, GE organisms or cells. While the public debate on Bt brinjal and its eventual moratorium has resulted in a pause on the commercialisation of GM crops in India, open-air field trials still continue. There is a growing controversy around the open-air field trials of GM crops, especially GM corn that are taking place in the country, he said. Radhakrishnan said though field trials had been stopped in many states due to the intervention of the local governments, Punjab and Haryana had given a go ahead for field trials of GM corn and the trials were taking place this season. “It is a pity that the Indian government is ignoring the possibility of contamination through GM crops. Experiences from our country and others have demonstrated that field trials can lead to genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) entering the food supply chain and also endanger our biodiversity,” he said, urging the central government to stop all open-air field trials of GM crops in the country.