Challenges of agro-biotechnologies, intellectual property rights and globalization (original) (raw)
Related papers
World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development, 2005
The present paper is an attempt to analyse the role of academic institutions in meeting the challenges posed by agro-biotechnologies, IPRs, globalisation and its implications for achieving the millennium development goals. The problems of implementing the MDGs are certainly intertwined and the entire nexus requires attention. However, serious doubts are being raised by many that these daunting goals would be achieved in the present international system, with an uneven 'globalisation' and conflicts generated by the TRIPS. Moreover, given the nature of agro-biotechnologies and the fact that commercial interests are found to be predominant, it is doubtful whether it will have any impact on food security, bio-safety or poverty reduction. The preceding context demands that the academic institutions pay greater attention to socio-economic & environmental objectives, IPR training & documenting traditional knowledge. This necessitates adoption of an active role in the development process rather than merely developing a node in a knowledge network.
Lessons from the Interaction of Biotechnology, Intellectual Property and World Needs
Minnesota journal of law, science & technology, 2004
Intellectual property in agricultural biotechnology has spurred vigorous public debate over the global impact of advanced research in the life sciences. The University of Minnesota is not only a significant source of cutting-edge research, it is also a neutral forum for public debate. As the host of an April 29, 2004 conference, called “Intellectual Property Rights for the Public Good: Obligations of U.S. Universities to Developing Countries,” the University of Minnesota has taken the lead in examining the economic, societal, and ethical implications of its agricultural research.1 Resolving debates over intellectual property in agricultural technology is more than just a theoretical exercise. The ability to feed a growing population may rest on ensuring that the developing world receives and adopts new technology. Sharing that technology is a complex matter that involves social justice and academic ethics. My education in intellectual property and the development of genetic engineer...
1993
Policymakers in developing countries responsible for national agricultural research are considering the implications of adopting intellectual property rights for biotechnology. The impetus for these deliberations comes from many factors, including the desire of developing countries to acquire and use new technologies in agricultural research, and the pressure exerted on developing countries in international negotiations to strengthen their intellectual property legislation. In this report, the introductory chapters summarize the increasing significance of intellectual property rights for agricultural biotechnology and current international trade- and development-related debates on IPR and developing-country responses to these issues. An analysis is then provided of the complexities, options and implications regarding intellectual property rights in relation to three national technology objectives: acquiring either public or proprietary biotechnologies, developing and protecting national innovations, and choices for technology transfer and licensing.
The Journal of World Intellectual Property, 2006
The recent revolution in the field of biotechnology has triggered off another round of controversy between the developed countries of the North and the developing countries of the South concerning access to genetic resources and equitable sharing of its benefits. Developed countries assert ownership claims on associated technologies, while developing countries claim ownership of genetic resources. The heart of the matter, however, lies in the application of conflicting conventions and protocols in respect of genetic resources and biotechnology: genetic resources are treated as public goods, while biotechnology is treated as a private good. Developing countries that claim ownership to a large reserve of the earth's pool of genetic resource feel that this exposes them to the exploitative tendencies of multinational corporations (MNCs) that are mainly owned by developed countries of the North. MNCs exploit the advantages as well as the weaknesses in the various conventions increasingly to monopolize the seed and germplasm industry, without due consideration for farmers and developing countries. This paper analyses these developments and proposes that a better regime of benefit sharing that recognizes farmers' or indigenous rights alongside patents and plant breeders' rights will go a long way to introducing a more even playing field that is mutually favourable to both parties.
This report is the second publication in a series of interrelated research-management reports from the Intermediary Biotechnology Service. A forthcoming report will provide a tool for the decision-making process involved in establishing national biotechnology programs, by analyzing this process at three levels: program scientists, sectoral leaders, and national policymakers. Another report will give a detailed overview of international initiatives that have as a common goal the application of biotechnology to tropical agriculture, and reviews the possibilities for national institutions in developing countries to collaborate on these activities.
Asian Journal of Agriculture and …, 2006
Significant developments in the scientific front and international policy arena have affected the use and exchange of genetic resources, and the management of intellectual property. These developments are now reshaping public agricultural research and development (R&D) in developing countries, especially in the access, generation, and dissemination of research outputs. Three of the most important international treaties and conventions that are important in this context majority of the developing countries are signatories to these treaties and could be expected to exploit them for their own advantage. On the other hand, non-member countries, despite their non-participation, must find alternative scenarios to be able to effectively address issues concerning IPR, agricultural biotechnology, and plant genetic resources.
The protection of intellectual property rights has been a contentious issue over the last 20 years. Industrialized nations have moved to knowledge-based economies and simultaneously trade barriers have fallen, making intellectual property vulnerable. Adding to this vulnerability are conflicting international institutional environments, belief systems, and economic realities. The debate over IPR protection has become a significant global trade issue pitting the net- technology producing North against the net-technology consuming South. The North maintains a comprehensive IPR institutional environment and actively employs enforcement mechanisms. The South on the other hand, is more conflicted. While in the last ten years many Southern countries have agreed to multilateral agreements on IPR protection, enforcement and real commitment has been lagging. With this in mind there has been much debate about the impact of alternative IPR regimes (tight or loose) on the welfare of Southern eco...
The paper seeks to develop a broad framework for analysing the implications of changes in intellectual property rights regimes deriving from both new international legal mechanisms and conventions, and from new agricultural technologies based on modern biotechnology and genetic engineering. The framework can function as a model for analysis and further research on the impact of these changes on the commons and related issues such as biodiversity, and on indigenous knowledge. These impacts could be in terms of social exclusion, loss of skills and knowledge for specific groups and categories of people resulting in a loss of capabilities and entitlements, and a consequent reduction in livelihood choices and strategies. It is also stated that these technologies have the capacity to perpetuate inequalities among groups within a community and between nations and economies. This occurs through excluding people from access to forms of knowledge, skills, techniques, and markets, which are important for subsistence, survival and for competing in a globalized economy. The paper is based on and uses the influential capabilities and entitlements approach developed by Amartya Sen, to analyse the effects of legal and technological changes on the survival and subsistence abilities and livelihood choices of farm households in developing countries. The capabilities and entitlements approaches are applied to study these effects in terms of changing 'rights regimes', and impacts on poor people's functioning arising from changes in livelihood options or 'capabilities set'. A trend away from pluralistic approaches to law, from a diverse technology and livelihoods basket, and towards greater uniformity and reduction in biodiversity is seen to contribute to the exclusion and marginalization of the rural poor from the development process. Shifts in technology and IPR regimes resulting from the process of globalization transform the social organization of knowledge systems and their application-with a concomitant decay in indigenous knowledge systems. More importantly these have significant impacts on particular social groups such as women, small and marginal farmers, pastoral communities, agricultural labour, groups more dependent on commons etc. A significant aspect of the new changes is that they are brought about by a specific combination of international legal mechanisms and technological / scientific techniques that recast social and economic relations between social groups, communities and nation-states. To capture the nature and consequences of these changes, the paper develops an " impact map for the commons " that will serve as a model for analysis. The " impact map " is then integrated with Sen's 'entitlement mapping' so as to enable the clear delineation of impacts of livelihood changes on poverty and exclusion. In doing so it draws upon selected case studies of farm household, village, and community level impacts of technological and rights regime changes in the access to and use of common property resources in south Asia. A second strand of analysis derives from established scientific evidence on products of modern biotechnology and genetic engineering, and infers logical conclusions regarding possible impacts on the rural poor in developing countries, in terms of their livelihood choices as reflected in shifts in entitlements and capabilities.