The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) famously introduced the concepts of benefit-sharing and national sovereignty over biological and genetic resources, and has been regarded as an effective counterbalance to inequitable exchange of in particular plant genetic resources. In my paper, I question the justice-promoting function of the convention on conceptual grounds. The aim is a clarification of the policy debate surrounding genetic resources, different property paradigms and their ethical implications by employing the distinction between “justice-in-exchange“ and “distributive justice“ put forward by Thomas Pogge and Doris Schroeder. Benefit-sharing promotes a procedural form of justice that compensates local communities for their conservation efforts with e.g. technology transfer. In addition to many practical problems, the concept assumes that benefits can only be generated by increasing technological use and commercialization. This dilemma is compounded by the fact that ownership claims to biological and genetic resources as interregional and intergenerational goods are not easy to conceptualize, which means that imbalances of power become even more decisive. A justice-in-exchange framework would defend sovereignty but remains silent on ethically often controversial issues of commercializing genetic resources. While the distributive justice perspective seems the more natural approach for conservation aspects, it might provide arguments against the sovereignty approach if it allows for countries to promote detrimental environmental politics that have a global impact. In conclusion, I contend that both perspectives combined give us a fair picture of biological resources couched between the potentially conflicting aims of conservation and technological use. However, they should be extended to encompass considerations of how innovations such as biomedical products are brought about, which leads to an argument for institutions that improve the distributive effects of global innovation regimes similar to the ones recently proposed by Pogge and Buchanan et al.
