Compliance of Bangladesh’s Domestic Laws with the International Legal Framework for Biodiversity Protection: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

Bangladesh has built a sizeable body of biodiversity legislation, but how well it matches the country’s international obligations has not been tested systematically. This article asks to what extent Bangladeshi law gives effect to the binding obligations in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing, and how it relates to the non-binding Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF). The study is doctrinal. It compares selected treaty provisions with the Bangladesh Biodiversity Act 2017, the Wildlife (Conservation and Security) Act 2012, the Environment Conservation Act 1995 and Environment Conservation Rules 2023, the Biosafety Rules 2012 and related sectoral laws, as in force in September 2026. Each obligation is rated full, partial, inadequate or absent against stated criteria, and findings drawn from the text of legislation are kept apart from claims about implementation, which rest on official and judicial sources. Four gaps emerge. Bangladesh has biosafety rules but no stand-alone biosafety statute. The Biodiversity Act 2017 gives communities no role in decisions on access to genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, which matters for the Nagoya Protocol (in force for Bangladesh since 10 April 2023). Designation, permit and institutional arrangements for protected places and species overlap. And no revised national strategy aligned with the KMGBF was publicly available at the time of writing. The article proposes reforms in three time horizons, names the responsible authority and legislative vehicle for each, and draws lessons for other dualist states that implement multilateral environmental agreements through general environmental statutes.