Costa Rica has developed a comprehensive regulatory framework to regulate access and benefit sharing, while at the same time addressing the relationship between access & benefit sharing, IPR and the protection of traditional knowledge. In fact, one of the more interesting features of the process in Costa Rica is precisely this broader approach, which does not just deal with each of these aspects in isolation, but addresses all these inter-related issues at the same time and in the same legal framework: namely the Biodiversity Law of Costa Rica.

Moreover, when drafting a legal regimen in order to control access and to ensure benefit sharing, Costa Rica tried at the same time to establish provisions for creating a positive environment for biodiversity protection.