The Associated Press of Pakistan reported on a speech made by ambassador Masood Khan to a meeting of experts on the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) in Geneva in which he said states need to each have their own codes of behaviour for bioengineering research rather than everyone signing up to an all-encompassing international treaty:
"He added that codes of conduct should not only focus on existing tangible and intangible technologies but fast developing disciplines such as synthetic biology and genomic technology."
According to Khan, the country has a three-tier monitoring system that comprises the National Biosafety Committee (NBC), the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and the Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC). Between them, these groups oversee laboratory work, field trials, commercial release, import, export, sale and purchase of GMOs and their products.
