ICGEB is an autonomous, international, intergovernmental, organization with the special mandate “to promote the safe use of biotechnology world-wide and with special regard to the needs of the developing world” and with a total of 60 countries signatories to the Statutes, 42 of which are now full Member States.
The ICGEB is following, with great attention, the negotiations for the adoption of a Biosafety Protocol by the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the overall development of the Convention, with particular interest in the issues relating to biotechnology.
WWW site includes the Biosafety WebPages, dedicated to Biosafety & Risk Assessment for the environmental release of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) with the aim of offering to Member States all the available information on biosafety concerns and proceedings world-wide and on the on-going process for the adoption of a Biosafety Protocol by the signatory countries to the Convention on Biological Diversity expected for February 1999. Will make available on internet, with free access, an updated scientific bibliographic database on Biosafety and Risk assessment in biotechnology. The database contains, to date, about 1700 scientific articles (full reference plus abstract), published on international scientific journals since 1990, selected and classified from ICGEB scientists by the main topic of concern for the environmental release of GMOs.