concept

Prior informed consent

The requirement that before any biological sample is taken, the collector must fully disclose the research purpose and commercial intent, and then receive explicit approval. Each part of the name is a separate condition: consent must come before collection, not as later ratification; it must rest on real information, so concealing commercial intent voids it; and it must be consent, meaning it can be refused. That last point is what gives it meaning: an approval that cannot be withheld is not consent but paperwork. In biodiversity law this power to permit belongs to the state and to indigenous communities — not to the organism.