by Michael Lane
prepared for the second meeting of
the Conference of the Parties to
the Convention on Biological Diversity
Jakarta, Indonesia
November 1995
UP-DATED EDITION (JANUARY 1996)
The author may be reached for comment:
Michael Lane
Consultant
1620 Bolton St., no 2
Baltimore, MD 21217
USA
Telephone/facsimile: 410.462.3053
Internet: barrenador@nothingness.org
Worldwide Web: http://www.charm.net/~gbarren/cv
I wish to thank those who assisted my research by providing interesting and useful information, including Martha Hall (Bank Information Service), Steven Price (University of Wisconsin) and Walt Reid (World Resources Institute). I would also like to extend my gratitude to Vandana Shiva for her public remarks on the biotechnology industries' (and its promoters') double standard concerning the nature of their products, depending on whether intellectual property protection or special regulation is at stake. They inspired this paper.
I would like to give special thanks to Richard Schweiger of the Community Nutrition Institute (CNI), who invited me to write this paper and showed great forbearance as it slowly developed.
CONTENTS
[brief history of industrial biotechnology; how the biotechnology industries present themselves; reality of the past few years]
Biotechnology and intellectual property rights
[public face of IPRs; relation of patents to trade secrets; private face of IPRs; IPRs in the United States; international agreements on IPRs]
[risks of biotechnology; US regulatory framework; challenge of international regulation; what a bio-safety protocol would mean; attitude of industry and government supporters toward the bio-safety campaign]
IPRs, biotechnology and the Third World--toward a new system of values
[rational concern; rhetoric of invention and stewardship; invention, innovation and property among indigenous and local communities; secret of the "inventive step"]
Recommendations--toward appropriate institutions
[public participation and decision-making; bio-safety protocol to the CBD; "PIC-NIC" principle; right of countries not to patent life forms; support for the renegotiation of the IUPGR; international panel on environment and trade; development of traditional resource rights/community intellectual property rights; support for land tenure rights]