1. Introduction:
“Administrative and judicial remedies” is a legal concept with immense practical importance in the ABS negotiations. The existence of effective legal remedies in the user country is the primary means by which all ABS parties (especially source countries and other providers) obtain certainty about their rights and how they will be protected and applied. The CBD’s provisions and the ABS regime negotiations have created certain concepts (new sovereign legal rights) and all CBD parties have committed to adopt legislative and administrative measures to recognise and apply those concepts. Legal remedies are the tools for ensuring that these commitments and their underlying objectives are achieved in practice. The proper relationship between the judiciary and the quasi judicial administrative agency is a topic of continuing controversy in administrative law. One of the most significant and puzzling problems which has arisen in this area is the timing of judicial intervention in the administrative process-at what point and to what extent may the court give relief to a party aggrieved by administrative action. Universally applied, the doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies precludes an applicant from challenging the validity of administrative actions prior to seeking relief via prescribed administrative procedures. The law of ‘remedies’ is not usually sectorally specialised. In nearly all countries, “administrative and judicial remedies” are provided in general national law, applicable to all legal issues and structures. A different, though related, problem arises when a party seeks judicial intervention not to challenge the validity of the agency's action, but rather merely to maintain the status quo during the administrative process. Administrative agencies function as entities quite separate from the judiciary-they are essentially an arm of