The United Nations protocol for biodiversity protection and benefit sharing from genetic resources went into effect on October 12. But Japan, which hosted the meeting that produced the agreement, failed to ratify it in time as domestic changes necessary for the country to become a contracting party stalled due to opposition from business groups. Japan's environment minister Yoshio Mochizuki has said that Japan will aim to ratify the protocol as soon as possible and to implement the necessary domestic measures in 2015.