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Sharpening the Legal Tools to Overcome Biopiracy in Africa Through Pro-development Implementation of Normative International Standards: Lessons from Brazil, South Africa and India

Sharpening the Legal Tools to Overcome Biopiracy in Africa Through Pro-development Implementation... ADEJOKE O. OYEWUNMI I. INTRODUCTION The African Centre for Biosafety has expressed concerns about the continued plundering of Africa's rich biological resources and traditional knowledge by foreign organisations, and the seeming complicity of the international intellectual property system in this brazen act.1 According to the Centre: International businesses, institutions, and other players have created profitable private monopolies over African patrimony by staking out patent claims on Africa's genes, plants, and related traditional knowledge. The patent claims are not only economically unjust, but are a moral affront to the many generations of Africans who have cared for, and created the continent's rich genetic and cultural diversity.2 This statement aptly sums up the inequity currently being faced by African communities and others whose richness in biological resources and traditional knowledge has turned them to victims in the hands of multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnological companies that secure the grant of property rights over their traditional knowledge and resources. It also brings to the fore the injustice inherent in an international intellectual property system which permits, albeit tacitly, such misappropriation of the resources, knowledge and efforts of others. PhD (OAU Ile-Ife), LLMIP (Franklin Pierce Law Centre of the University of New Hampshire, http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png African Journal of International and Comparative Law Edinburgh University Press

Sharpening the Legal Tools to Overcome Biopiracy in Africa Through Pro-development Implementation of Normative International Standards: Lessons from Brazil, South Africa and India

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Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Copyright
© Edinburgh University Press 2013
Subject
Articles; African Studies
ISSN
0954-8890
eISSN
1755-1609
DOI
10.3366/ajicl.2013.0072
Publisher site
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Abstract

ADEJOKE O. OYEWUNMI I. INTRODUCTION The African Centre for Biosafety has expressed concerns about the continued plundering of Africa's rich biological resources and traditional knowledge by foreign organisations, and the seeming complicity of the international intellectual property system in this brazen act.1 According to the Centre: International businesses, institutions, and other players have created profitable private monopolies over African patrimony by staking out patent claims on Africa's genes, plants, and related traditional knowledge. The patent claims are not only economically unjust, but are a moral affront to the many generations of Africans who have cared for, and created the continent's rich genetic and cultural diversity.2 This statement aptly sums up the inequity currently being faced by African communities and others whose richness in biological resources and traditional knowledge has turned them to victims in the hands of multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnological companies that secure the grant of property rights over their traditional knowledge and resources. It also brings to the fore the injustice inherent in an international intellectual property system which permits, albeit tacitly, such misappropriation of the resources, knowledge and efforts of others. PhD (OAU Ile-Ife), LLMIP (Franklin Pierce Law Centre of the University of New Hampshire,

Journal

African Journal of International and Comparative Law – Edinburgh University Press

Published: Oct 1, 2013

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