Legal Challenges and Opportunities in Regulating Biotechnology and Nanotechnology for Environmental Protection: A Comparative Analysis of International and National Frameworks

The fast growth of biotechnology and nanotechnology has great potentials in environmental conservation through realization of new techniques of pollution and waste management and sustainable use of resources. But the new technologies also raised new regulatory issues because the new technologies are associated with potential threats to ecosystems and human health. The purpose of this paper is to review legal developments and considerations for the biotechnology and nanotechnology regulation for environmental conservation in the international and national levels. In this paper, the discussion of the identified loopholes in the existing systems of regulation is based on the analysis of the current laws, with the emphasis on the absence of the preventive principle in the current legal systems. The analysis also features the EU legal framework in chemicals as a highly prescriptive one, the US approach as considerably more flexible than that of EU, and the new legal measures and models in developing countries. The paper also considers global treaties concerning biotechnological and nanotechnological effects on the environment, for instance, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol. Furthermore, ethical and social aspects remain a focal point in the paper as well as the issue of public involvement regarding the regulation. Thus, by pointing out the directions of possible enhancements of the existing legal regulation, this paper furthers the understanding of how and in what manner the law can and should progress to address the emerging technologies and support the promotion of the environment and sustainable development.