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This international treaty was adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 with the following main goals: the conservation of biodiversity; the sustainable use of its components; and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the exploitation of genetic resources.  
Its objective is to develop national strategies for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. It is considered the key document concerning sustainable development.
Initially, the Convention's offices were located in Geneva before moving permanently to Montreal. It was opened for signature on June 5, 1992 and entered into force on December 29, 1993. By December 1993, 168 countries had signed the convention. For a long time, the convention had only a limited binding scope, but since the end of the 1990s it has begun to be applied in practice in certain countries and supranational communities such as the European Union. It contains a reminder of the use of terms in its article 2 and introduces the precautionary principle.