The need to regulate access to genetic resources and ensure a fair and equitable sharing of any resulting benefits was at the core of the development of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Addressing the management of genetic resources, this book offers a new assessment of the contemporary Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) regime. Debates about ABS have moved on. The initial focus on the legal obligations established by international agreements like the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and the form of obligations for collecting physical biological materials have now shifted into a far more complex series of disputes and challenges about the ways ABS should be implemented and enforced. These now cover a wide range of issues, including: digital sequence information, the repatriation of resources, technology transfer, traditional knowledge and cultural expressions, open access to information and knowledge, naming conventions, farmers’ rights, new schemes for accessing pandemic viruses sharing DNA sequences, and so on. Drawing together perspectives from an interdisciplinary range of leading and emerging international scholars, this book offers a new approach to the ABS landscape; as it breaks from the standard regulatory analyses in order to explore alternative solutions to the intractable issues for the Access and Benefit Sharing of genetic resources. Addressing these modern legal debates from a perspective that will appeal to both ABS scholars and those with broader legal concerns in the areas of intellectual property, food, governance, Indigenous issues, and so on, this book will be a useful resource for scholars and students as well as those in government and in international institutions working in relevant areas.

This fascinating study describes efforts to define and protect traditional knowledge and the associated issues of access to genetic resources, from the negotiation of the Convention on Biological Diversity to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Nagoya Protocol. Drawing on the expertise of local specialists from around the globe, the chapters judiciously mix theory and empirical evidence to provide a deep and convincing understanding of traditional knowledge, innovation, access to genetic resources, and benefit sharing. Because traditional knowledge was understood in early negotiations to be subject to a property rights framework, these often became bogged down due to differing views on the rights involved. New models, developed around the notion of distributive justice and self-determination, are now gaining favor. This book suggests – through a discussion of theory and contemporary case studies from Brazil, India, Kenya and Canada – that a focus on distributive justice best advances the interests of indigenous peoples while also fostering scientific innovation in both developed and developing countries. Comprehensive as well as nuanced, Genetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge will be of great interest to scholars and students of law, political science, anthropology and geography. National and international policymakers and those interested in the environment, indigenous peoples' rights and innovation will find the book an enlightening resource.

The Nagoya Protocol is an unprecedented international environmental agreement that equally addresses development, distributive justice, and environmental sustainability. With a balanced view of the various possible interpretations of the Protocol provisions, in light of different national and regional perspectives, and a systematic highlighting of its legal innovations, Unraveling the Nagoya Protocol: A Commentary on the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing to the Convention on Biological Diversity will serve as a seminal work for all those interested in the environment, human rights, economics and both legal and scientific innovations.

Debates about Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) have moved on in recent years. An initial focus on the legal obligations established by international agreements like the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and the form of obligations for collecting physical biological materials have now moved to a far more complex series of disputes and challenges about the ways ABS should be implemented and enforced: repatriation of resources, technology transfer, traditional knowledge and cultural expressions; open access to information and knowledge, naming conventions, farmers’ rights, new schemes for accessing pandemic viruses and sharing DNA sequences, and so on. Unfortunately, most of this debate is now crystallised into apparently intractable discussions such as implementing the certificates of origin, recognising traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expression as a form of intellectual property, and sovereignty for Indigenous peoples. Not everything in this new marketplace of ABS has been created de novo. Like most new entrants, ABS has disrupted existing legal and governance arrangements. This collection of chapters examines what is new, what has been changed, and what might be changed in response to the growing acceptance and prevalence of ABS of genetic resources. Biodiversity, Genetic Resources and Intellectual Property: Developments in Access and Benefit Sharing of Genetic Resources addresses current issues arising from recent developments in the enduring and topical debates about managing genetic resources through the ABS regime. The book explores key historical, doctrinal, and theoretical issues in the field, at the same time developing new ideas and perspectives around ABS. It shows the latest state of knowledge and will be of interest to researchers, academics, policymakers, and students in the fields of intellectual property, governance, biodiversity and conservation, sustainable development, and agriculture.

General information on the interface between intellectual property (IP) and traditional knowledge (TK), traditional cultural expressions (TCEs), and genetic resources (GRs). It briefly addresses the most important questions that arise when considering the role that IP principles and systems can play in protecting TK and TCEs from misappropriation, and in generating and equitably sharing benefits from their commercialization, and the role of IP in access to and benefit sharing in GRs.