Crop Genetic Resources as a Global Commons Challenges in International Law and Governance (original) (raw)
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The Earth's plant genetic resources are a common inheritance of all humankind, which should be held in shared trust for a common future. A key component of the global genetic commons is agricultural biodiversity. Our food and livelihood security depend on the sustained management of these diverse biological resources that are important for food and agriculture. Whilst agricultural biodiversity originates in specific farming communities, it has been shared widely and is considered by many to be part of the muchthreatened global commons. This book is about the creation, management and use of the global crop commons. It focuses primarily on the legal and administrative construct that provides the basis of the global crop commons, that is, the multilateral system of access and benefit-sharing created by the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. This is particularly significant because it transcends the traditional dichotomy between privatization and total governmental control. It came into effect in 2006 and the book describes its origins and implementation since then, showing how many international organizations and some developing countries are moving quickly with implementation, while other countries are moving slowly and some multinational corporations are expressing misgivings about the system overall.
Access to and Benefit Sharing of Plant Genetic Resources: Novel Field Experiences to Inform Policy
Resources, 2013
A number of national and international policy processes are underway to allow for the development of sui generis systems to protect local natural and genetic resources and related knowledge about their management, use and maintenance. Despite agreements reached on paper at international and national levels, such as the Nagoya Protocol on access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits derived from their use, and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, progress in implementation has been slow and in many countries, painful. Promising examples from the field could stimulate policy debates and inspire implementation processes. Case studies from China, Cuba, Honduras, Jordan, Nepal, Peru and Syria offer examples of novel access and benefit sharing practices of local and indigenous farming communities. The examples are linked to new partnership configurations of multiple stakeholders interested in supporting these communities. The effective and fair implementation of mechanisms supported by appropriate policies and laws will ultimately be the most important assessment factor of the success of any formal access and benefit sharing regime.
2015
Published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License * Senior research fellow, Fridtjof Nansen Institute. Tvedt has published extensively in the area of biological resources law and intellectual property in recent years (see www.fni.no for a complete list of publications). The most important monograph regarding genetic resources he co-authored with Tomme R. Young, Beyond Access:Exploring Implementation of the Fair and Equitable Sharing Commitment in the CBD. IUCN Environmental Policy and Law Paper No. 67/1 (available in English, Spanish and French, www.fni.no/publ/biodiversity.html). Tvedt is currently working on a monograph on patent law and the sui generis option in the plant sector for developing countries. He wants to thank Professor Trygve Berg at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences for valuable comments and discussions, and Research Professor G. Kristin Rosendal for useful input. The research for this article was funded by the Norwegian Research Council under the ELSA Programme and forms part of the three-year project 'Biotechnology in agriculture and aquaculture-effects of intellectual property rights in the food production chain'. The same topic is presented in the section by Tvedt in Medaglia and others. The Interface between the Nagoya Protocol on ABS and the ITPGRFA at the International Level-Potential Issues for Consideration in Supporting Mutually Supportive Implementation at the National Level.
Drake Journal of Agricultural Law, 2006
This article examines the international legal framework in which traditional farmers and agricultural biotechnology (agro-biotech) protect their knowledge and plant genetic resources. Traditional farms and agro-biotech both play significant roles in enhancing global food security and biodiversity. Legal measures to protect the knowledge of agro-biotech and traditional farmers were deployed by nations with a head start in the agro-biotech industry. The resulting system of utility patents and the sui generis concept of plant breeders' rights often subordinates the claims of farmers under those of agro-biotech. The author argues the current regime under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) is inadequate to moderate the inequities created by intellectual property in plant genetic resources. Agro-biotech alone cannot ensure global food security and sustainable agriculture, nor can an intellectual property system that undermines local and traditional agriculture. Traditional farming knowledge is indispensable to ensuring that culturally acceptable food is accessible around the globe. A two-pronged approach to inequities in the current intellectual property system is possible. First, developing countries can use national legislation to comprehensively define farmers' rights beyond the ITPGRFA. Second, the governing body of the treaty can prioritize interpreting Article 12.3(d) of the Treaty with regard for the expectations of developing countries.
Agrobiodiversity and the law: regulating genetic resources, food security and cultural diversity
Journal of Peasant Studies, 2013
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), launched 20 years ago, envisioned a bifurcated world divided between 'providers' and 'users' of genetic resources. An organizing principle of the CBD was that enlightened self-interest could stem the deluge of species' extinction caused by such forces as tropical deforestation. The CBD offered two mechanisms to mobilize this self-interest: (1) recognizing national sovereignty in the ownership of biological resources; and (2) establishing 'access and benefit-sharing' (ABS) systems to establish legal frameworks to maintain the flow of biological resources and encourage conservation by giving economic returns to the stewards of biological resources. The CBD was largely silent on biological diversity in agricultural systems. Indeed, to many biologists, agriculture is the enemy of biological diversity. Nevertheless, a parallel set of issues exists regarding 'agrobiodiversity'the myriad of local crop varieties, farmer knowledge, and wild crop relatives that are concentrated in certain areas, much like biological diversity in the tropics. These regions are primarily associated with the regions where crop species were originally domesticated, such as Mesoamerica, the Andes, or the arc between eastern Anatolia and the Negev (Brush 2004). They are also subject to the loss of biological diversity as farmers replace locally diverse varieties with commercial varieties released by seed companies and plant breeding programs.
2006
Current farmers' breeding goes beyond the gradual selection in landraces, and includes development and maintenance of major new farmers' varieties that are rather uniform, in particular in South-East Asia. Modern varieties developed in the formal sector have simply replaced landraces as the source of diversity, but have not abolished farmers' breeding practices. Interpretations of the new international agreements on plant genetic resources should protect the development of modern farmers' varieties. However, ensuring recognition of collective innovation, allowing access to relevant germplasm sources for farmers' breeding activities, keeping materials freely available, and arranging for effective benefit sharing, all form major challenges. This paper proposes a new protective measure: namely "origin recognition rights."
Food Policy, 1988
This series of books is published by Earthscan in association with Bioversity International. The aim of the series is to review the current state of knowledge in topical issues associated with agricultural biodiversity, to identify gaps in our knowledge base, to synthesize lessons learned and to propose future research and development actions. The overall objective is to increase the sustainable use of biodiversity in improving people's well-being and food and nutrition security. The series' scope is all aspects of agricultural biodiversity, ranging from conservation biology of genetic resources through social sciences to policy and legal aspects. It also covers the fields of research, education, communication and coordination, information management and knowledge sharing.
2010
See for example Elfrieda Pschorn-Strauss and Rachel Wynberg 'The seeds of neo-colonialism: genetic engineering in food and farming' (2002) GroundWork, and Mariam Mayet 'The new green revolution in Africa: Trojan horse for GMOs?' (2007). 17 See in this regard the European Group on Ethics in Science and new Technologies to the European Commission 'Ethics of modern developments in agriculture technologies Opinion No 24' (17 December 2008) and the COGEM Report 'Socio-economic aspects of GMOs: building blocks for an EU sustainability assessment of genetically modified crops' CGM/090929-01. 18 This is referred to as the concept of dual knowledge in which a single 'discovery' may contribute to both scientific research and to a useful commercial application. Dual knowledge is often exploited in what is known as patent-paper pairs in which a publication is coupled with the patent. Empirical research shows a citation rate decline for such papers after formal IP rights have been granted, thus suggesting that IP rights may have a negative impact on the diffusion of scientific knowledge. Murray, Fiona and Stern, Scott 'Do formal intellectual property rights hinder the free flow of scientific knowledge? An empirical test of the anti-commons hypothesis' (2007) 63 Journal of Economic Behaviour & Organization 648-687. The pursuit of a dual knowledge strategy was enabled in the US by the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 and is likely to become the practice in South Africa once the Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development Act 51 of 2008 becomes operational. Researchers in the developing world already face a host of barriers to effective research. See for example Forero-Pineda, Clemente and Jaramillo-Salazar, Hernan 'The access of researchers from developing countries to international science and technology' (2002) 54 International Social Science Journal 129-140. '[P]lant germplasm is a resource that reproduces itself, and a single 'taking' of germplasm could provide the material base upon which whole new sectors of production could be elaborated.' Jack R Kloppenburg First the seed: the political economy of plant biotechnology (1988) at 154 cited in 'Weeds, seeds & deeds' (note 25) at 262. 28 Mgbeoji questions the applicability of the common heritage concept during the colonial era, as the 'transfer of germ plasm from the colony to the mother country was more or less perceived as "an internal affair" of the colonial empires'. Ikechi Mgbeoji 'Beyond rhetoric: state sovereignty, common concern, and the inapplicability of the common heritage concept to plant genetic resources' (2003) 16 Leiden Journal of International Law 821 at 823. 29 The implications of the burgeoning regime for developing countries and for public sector research are discussed in Wright and Pardey 'Changing IP regimes: implications for developing country agriculture' (2006) 2 Int J Technology and Globalisation 93-114. broader environment (soil, water supply, etc). 37 From a social and economic perspective, there are concerns about food security and safety, cultural heritage, freedom of choice, and economic welfare. 38 These concerns are diverse and are often regulated in seemingly discreet areas of law which together spin an intricate web of rules, a complex regulatory regime, around PGRs. 39 1.2.2 A complex regulatory regime A proliferation of international organisations and instruments over the past few decades has given rise to 'an array of partially overlapping and nonhierarchical institutions governing a particular issue-area.' 40 These 'regime complexes' are in turn reflected in the provisions of domestic law.
African Research Review, 2009
There is renewed international effort to address challenges associated with sustainable agriculture and food security. The key international framework is the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for food and Agriculture. Through it, is established a Multilateral System (MS) of facilitated access to key plant genetic resources that are vital for human food and nutrition, as well as sustainable agriculture. If properly implemented and utilized, the system offers attractive prospects for dealing with those challenges. This paper attempts to provide an understanding of the Multilateral System of facilitated access to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture especially in addressing food security and sustainable agriculture. Introduction/Background The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture is a landmark international agreement for ensuring food security and sustainable agriculture especially in developing countries. It establishes an elaborate system of facilitated access to a number of plant genetic resources considered key in agriculture production and meeting the nutritional and food related needs of humanity. Under the system, access is to be provided expeditiously with minimal costs involved. The system also