Intellectual Property Rights and the North-South Contest for Agricultural Germplasm: A Historical Perspective
This article examines intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes as they apply to agricultural germplasm in the context of global North-South relations. The issue is pertinent particularly since TRIPs (Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) became enshrined in the statutes of the World Trade Organization in 1994, institutionalizing the notion of ‘germplasm as property’ throughout the globe. Yet, the idea of ‘germplasm as property’ is a notion culturally specific to the global North historically. It is perhaps no surprise that many germplasm patents are being held on biological matter that originated in the South–in the Vavilovian ‘centers of diversity’. This paradox situates the contest over biodiversity resources in a world-historic context and undermines the declared reasons for germplasm IPRs. Besides, more than just a North-South conflict over resources, this episode features also a confrontation between competing worldviews of nature-human relations.
The urgency of decoloniality
The notion of decolonisation presupposes a colonial predicament in need of resolution, but what colonial situation exists, and what need is there for decolonisation when national liberation has already been accomplished throughout much of the globe half a century ago? This paper has two aims. First, it seeks to highlight the political-economic, socio-cultural, and ecological conditions that undergird the crisis of contemporary modern civilisation. It argues that this civilizational crisis derives from a colonial logic that animates all relations of modern exploitation and expropriation. Following this, the paper’s other aim is not only to argue for the desirability of de-colonisation, but to highlight its urgency as an existential imperative for life on earth. Moreover, the paper suggests that such a de-colonial move has to be undertaken as a personal everyday practice. Integral to this move is the conceptual distinction I make between colonisation and de-colonisation/de-Westernisation on the one hand, and coloniality and de-coloniality on the other. The paper concludes by considering some practical de-colonial options available to us. Opinion / The urgency of decoloniality
From Time Immemorial: Indigenous Peoples and State Systems
From Time Immemorial: Indigenous Peoples and State Systems. Richard J. Perry. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996. 302 pp.