Indigenous Knowledge

Univ. of Kansas Scholars on Protecting Indigenous Knowledge in the Age of Climate Change

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Joseph Brewer II and Elizabeth Ann Kronk Warner have posted “Guarding Against Exploitation: Protecting Indigenous Knowledge in the Age of Climate Change” on SSRN.

Here is the abstract:

Indigenous knowledge has the potential to ameliorate the extreme, destructive impacts of climate change. Given their enduring connection to place, indigenous communities are the subjects of knowledge acquisition relevant to the changing climate. Yet, because this traditional knowledge has been exploited by outsiders, indigenous communities may be wary to share such valuable information with individuals outside of their communities. And, even if traditional knowledge is shared, indigenous peoples may wish to maintain control over its use to guard against exploitation. This article addresses concerns associated with the stewarding of such traditional knowledge, in hopes of providing legal structure to the conversation. As the application of traditional knowledge becomes more apparent in the climate change context, a conversation to invoke action in the academy and legal systems is needed to create structures that value as well as protect the complexities of indigenous community-based research. Ultimately, this article strives to explore methods of holding those who seek and steward traditional knowledge accountable to indigenous communities. To accomplish this goal, this article examines traditional knowledge held by tribes within the United States that may prove helpful in the fight against the deleterious impacts of climate change. Then, having identified valuable knowledge possessed by tribes, the article goes on to examine the potential for existing domestic and international law to protect against the exploitation of such knowledge. After concluding that the existing law provides inadequate protection at best, the article asserts that tribes may be better served by enacting their own tribal laws to protect against such exploitation, and then explores the existing tribal law enacted to protect tribal traditional knowledge. This is the first article to provide concrete examples of traditional knowledge useful in combating the impacts of climate change and how the law may apply in such instances. This is also the first article to examine the use of tribal law to address the protection of traditional knowledge in-depth and provide a discussion of how some tribes are already utilizing tribal law to accomplish such goals. Accordingly, this article constitutes an important addition to the scholarship surrounding protection of traditional knowledge.

Lynn & Whyte: “Indigenous Peoples, Climate Change and the Government-to-Government Relationship”

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Kathy Lynn and Kyle Powys Whyte have posted “Indigenous Peoples, Climate Change and the Government-to-Government Relationship” on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Climate change impacts present indigenous peoples with distinct challenges, from the loss of species needed for subsistence practices like fishing and plant gathering, to coastal erosion that may force some communities to migrate away from areas they have inhabited or used for many years. Students, activists, environmental managers, scholars and corporate and political leaders of all heritages should be aware of how indigenous peoples must address climate change impacts from global to community-level scales, and the obstacles they may encounter due to intersecting oppressions, like cultural imperialism and disempowerment. To create such awareness, there is a need for more work that describes the specific sites of interaction relevant to indigenous peoples and climate change. Sites of interaction are the local and regional places where indigenous peoples are in relationships with governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), networks and alliances. Better understanding the relationships that indigenous peoples have with these groups and institutions contributes to fostering unique and necessary indigenous approaches to address climate change that reflect their unique cultural connections to the earth. This paper focuses on one of the critical sites of interaction for indigenous peoples in the United States — the government-to-government relationship. While the government-to-government relation is not a new approach, this paper examines how it might operate in indigenous climate change adaptation contexts in the United States. We describe a set of examples of consultation and collaboration and offer seven recommendations that demonstrate the value of tribal responses to climate change.

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.