China Williams

PhD researcher

China Williams is a Senior Policy Advisor at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. This involves:

  • ensuring Kew is compliant with national and international ABS legislation when accessing, using and supplying genetic resources
  • developing research agreements with Kew's international scientific partners
  • providing bespoke training and capacity building on practical implementation of the CBD to Kew staff and international partners
  • providing scientific evidence and expert advice to Defra and other governmental and international agencies on practical ABS implementation

 China's most recent activities include:

  • invited speaker in the roundtable discussion on 'Databases and other Defensive Measures relating to Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge' at the WIPO Seminar on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources (May 2016)
  • member of small Guidance Development Group on Pharmaceuticals for the development of sector-specific guidance to support the implementation of the EU ABS Regulations

China was on the UK delegation at all three meetings of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Nagoya Protocol (Montreal 2011, Delhi 2012, South Korea 2014) and continues to represent Kew on the UK delegation at ABS related meetings.

She is currently on the following national and international advisory groups:

  • European expert to the Informal Advisory Committee (IAC) on capacity-building for the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol Chair of subcommittee on national, subnational and international capacity-building (IUCN ABS Expert Group)
  • Member of the UK Royal Horticultural Society Nagoya Protocol Working Group
  • Member of the core team of the CETAF (Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities) Legislation and Regulation Liaison Group
  • Member of the UK ABS Stakeholder Forum; Member of the UK ABS Project Board

China holds the following qualifications:

  • Masters (LLM) International Environmental Law, SOAS, University of London, UK
  • Called to the Bar, Inner Temple, 1992
  • MA (Hons) in History, Edinburgh University, UK

She is currently working on a PhD examining the influence of the involvement of the non-commercial research sector on the development of the current ABS Regime. This involves a focus on lessons learnt from research agreements between provider countries and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.