genetic resources

TICA CLE: “International Treaties, Agreements, and Instruments which include Traditional Knowledge, Genetic Resources, or Traditional Cultural Expressions” (Feb. 2, 2017)

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Here.

The description:

This CLE will provide an overview of select international treaties, agreements and other instruments that have provisions regarding Traditional Knowledge (TK), Genetic Resources (GR), or Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCE). 

Primarily in the past 25 years, many such documents have been negotiated, adopted or approved globally and regionally among various nation states, including the United States.  TK, GR and TCE generally include those of Indigenous Peoples.  Provisions on TK, GR, or TCE are contained in global or multi-national documents addressing, among other subjects: Human Rights, Climate Change, the Environment, Natural Resources, Free Trade, Food, Biological Diversity, Genetics, and Intellectual Property. 

Currently, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), through an Inter-Governmental Committee, is considering a treaty or other instrument on TK, GR, and TCE.  The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office likely will be conducting Listening Sessions with American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes in 2017 on the WIPO TK, GR and TCE instrument negotiations.  This CLE will help tribal governments and their attorneys and advocates prepare for important discussions at the Listening Sessions.

Symposium, Traditional Knowledge: IP and Federal Policy

Victoria Sweet

March 21, 2014 at American University Washington College of Law

Further information available here.

Both a live and archived webcast will be available.

Philips: “Indigenous Rights, Traditional Knowledge, and Access to Genetic Resources”

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Valerie Philips (Tulsa) posted “Indigenous Rights, Traditional Knowledge, and Access to Genetic Resources: New Participants in International Law Making” on SSRN. Here’s the abstract:

Being able at least to imagine the demise of the nation-state is critical to understanding how the contemporary nation-state relates to indigenous peoples. Neither Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) nor Critical Race Theory (CRT) has effectively analyzed the impact of indigenous peoples concerns on international law, although both have tried to incorporate indigenous peoples into their respective modes of thinking. This is because TWAIL and CRT continue to focus fundamentally on the goals and advocacy of nationalist elites formed during the so-called post-colonial era. Indigenous peoples are lumped into social movements as if their interests cannot be distinguished from those of the mass of civil society. Scholars who take a grassroots, decolonizing approach, such as Maori professor Linda Tuhiwai-Smith, are much better suited to the task of analyzing the relationships among the nation-state, international laws surrounding traditional knowledge, and the rights of indigenous peoples.

Rebecca Tsosie on Native American Genetic Resources

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Rebecca Tsosie (Arizona State) has published “Cultural Challenges to Biotechnology: Native American Genetic Resources and the Concept of Cultural Harm” in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics (2007).

You can download the article here:  Tsosie Article