Biodiversity, Genetic Resources and Intellectual Property
Developments in Access and Benefit Sharing
Routledge Research in Intellectual Property Series

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.

Chapter 1: Biodiversity, Genetic Resources and Intellectual Property

Charles Lawson and Kamalesh Adhikari

Chapter 2: Reconceptualising Access: Moving Beyond the Limits of International Biodiversity Laws

Kamalesh Adhikari

Chapter 3: Aligning Means and Ends to Benefit Indigenous Peoples under the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol

Edwin Bikundo

Chapter 4: Banking on a Patent Solution for Sharing Antarctica’s Ex Situ Genetic Resources

Fran Humphries

Chapter 5: Nomenclature as a Standardized Metadata System for Ordering and Accessing Information about Plants

Charles Lawson

Chapter 6: Free Prior Informed Consent - Mere Politics or Meaningful Change?

Paul Martin

Chapter 7: The Trans-Pacific Partnership and Sustainable Development: Access to Genetic Resources, Informed Consent, and Benefit Sharing

Matthew Rimmer

Chapter 8: The Limits of ABS Laws: Why Gumby Gumby and other Bush Foods and Medicines need specific Indigenous Knowledge Protections

Daniel Robinson, Margaret Raven and John Hunter

Chapter 9: Reshaping the International Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing Process? Overcoming Resistance to Change and Correction

Manuel Ruiz Muller

Chapter 10: Certified ABS: The Union for Ethical BioTrade and the use of trade and certification marks to encourage and facilitate behaviour change

Jay Sanderson, Leanne Wiseman and Drossos Stamboulakis

Charles Lawson is a Professor at the Australian Centre for Intellectual Property in Agriculture, Griffith Law School, Griffith University, Australia.

Kamalesh Adhikari is AIBE Research Fellow in Food Security and Member of the ARC Laureate Project ‘Harnessing Intellectual Property to Build Food Security’, TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland, Australia.