Alejandro Lago is an international consultant specialized in environmental law and
policy and associate professor of International Law at CUNEF University in Madrid (Spain). He
currently facilitates the negotiation of access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing (ABS)
agreements on Digital Sequence Information (DSI) at the commercial level between private
biotechnology companies and Indigenous groups in different countries.
He has actively participated, as part of the Spanish delegation, in the negotiations under the
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) that led to the approval of the multilateral system on
DSI (2024). He has supported the Secretariat of the CBD in the finalization of the study on ABS
indicators to monitor the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity
Framework (2024), and the Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI) in the development and
launch of its food database and its ABS policy (2022-2024).
Between 2017 and 2021, he was the Manager of the global project on access to genetic
resources and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits derived from their utilization
(commonly known as ABS), which promoted the full implementation of the Nagoya Protocol in
23 countries — funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and implemented by the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Before joining UNDP, he was the Director of the
UNESCO Chair for the Environment (2006-2016) at the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid, a
department that focused on bridging science and policy through the development and
implementation of environmental laws through different environmental and biodiversity
projects.
He is experienced in negotiating, establishing, and implementing new environmental
instruments, such as the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecological Services
(IPBES) (EU spoke person in the final stage of the negotiation) and the Nagoya Protocol on
access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits derived from their
utilization (EU negotiator of the Nagoya Protocol). He holds a PhD in Law (Global Environmental
Governance), a Master of Laws (Environmental Legal Studies), and a Law and an Economics
degree.
He can be reached at alagoABS@gmail.com