IRRI - Genetic Resources Center - Is my country a Party to the Treaty?



	Is my country a Party to the Treaty? Does it matter?

To find out whether your country is a Party to the Treaty, look at the current list maintained and published by the FAO. Your country is a Party if it is listed in the table with a date under one of the columns headed "ratification", "acceptance", "approval" or "accession". Ignore the column headed "signature", which is not part of becoming a Party.

For obtaining seed from IRRI it makes no difference whether your country is a Party to the Treaty. Each SMTA is a legally binding contract between the provider (IRRI) and the recipient (you), regardless of whether your country is Party. Our agreement with the Governing Body of the Treaty legally binds IRRI to provide germplasm to Party countries under conditions specified by the Governing Body, but says nothing about what we can or cannot do with non-Party countries. Note in particular:

Nothing in the Treaty or the SMTA prevents us from sending germplasm to non-Party countries using the SMTA
Nothing in the Treaty or the SMTA prevents recipients in non-party countries from obtaining germplasm using the SMTA
It has been established that we will not discriminate between Parties and non-Parties: we distribute germplasm to non-Parties under the same conditions as we have to for Parties.

For sending seed to IRRI it does make a difference. See implications of the Treaty for how you can work with IRRI