Stimulating Trade and Development of Indigenous Cultural Heritage by Means of International Law: Issues of Legitimacy and Method
Adopting the view that a more active participation of indigenous peoples in the trade of their knowledge assets would promote their socioeconomic development raises difficult questions of legitimacy and method. Questions of legitimacy are posed by the potentially modernising effects of development endangering traditional ways of indigenous peoples’ social organisation. Questions of method arise when studying how international law, including international economic law, could better contribute to furthering the development interests of indigenous peoples in the trade of indigenous cultural heritage (ICH). There will be many areas where modern law and indigenous custom collide. These questions are the focus of the first part of the paper. The second part studies international law’s potential to stimulate ICH trade for the sake of indigenous socioeconomic development. To this end, it first assesses how interests of indigenous peoples in trade and development of ICH are currently institutionalised in international economic law. The paper then examines whether preferential trade rules for indigenous cultural goods and services would be an adequate tool to advance the interests of indigenous peoples in ICH trade and development.
Chapter 4 Guardianship and the Wai 262 Report
The analysis in the previous chapter made clear that, though existing intellectual property (IP) and related law could be used to protect some Māori interests in their cultural heritage, it cannot do so in an all-encompassing or satisfying way. This is in large part due to the disparities between how IP and its related laws function and the means by which Māori knowledge systems operate, much of which hinges on the idea of “ownership”. As discussed above (Sect. 3.1), indigenous peoples, including Māori, do not view their relationship with their tangible and intangible cultural heritage as one of “ownership”. In other words, their relationship usually does not equate to the bundle of rights usually associated with “property” of title, possession, exclusivity and alienability. Though in many situations, the relationship may be equivalent to “ownership”, or may be “ownership-like”, it is often better construed as a relationship of guardianship or stewardship (kaitiakitanga). Many indigenous communities care for their cultural heritage as a duty to their ancestors and to future generations. Indigenous peoples, thus, do not own their cultural heritage, so much as have duties and responsibilities over it. The disconnect between ownership and responsibilities also means that indigenous peoples may have duties over that which they do not own. Furthermore, though Western property is individual in nature, indigenous peoples seldom “own” their tangible and intangible property and lands individually, but as a collective. This is true even if one (or several identifiable) individual(s) has (or have) the responsibility over it. The duty is undertaken on behalf of the community.
Did the metamorphosis from Export Processing Zones to Special Economic Zones improve the efficiency of trade enclaves in India?
In this paper, the efficiency of seven conventional Special Economic Zones in India is analyzed, by adopting a stochastic production frontier technique, for the period between 1986–1987 and 2007–2008.Results indicate that although the efficiency scores of these enclaves have improved over the years, specifically with the introduction of the SEZ policy (2000–2001), it is far below the threshold level as identified in the literature. Besides, one can also observe a discrepancy emerging between better export earning zones and efficient zones. On the determinants side, policy intervention and large geographical area, accompanied by clustering of units, are found to have impacted the efficiency scores of these enclaves positively.