Tefera, Dagnachew Melese (2013) Biopiracy: International Perspective and the Case of Ethiopia (Legal and Institutional Regime). Masters thesis, Addis Ababa University.
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Abstract
All living organisms; plants, animals and microbes, carry genetic material that could be potentially useful to humans. These resources can be taken from the wild, domesticated or cultivated. There are significant potential benefits to be gained by accessing genetic resources and making use of them. They provide a crucial source of information to better understand the natural world and can be used to develop a wide range of products and services for human benefit. These include products such as medicines and cosmetics, as well as agricultural and environmental practices and techniques. Hence the issue of ownership over genetic resources and related traditional knowledge has become one the most controversial worldwide issue. The controversy is mainly between the developed and big international pharmaceuticals on the one hand and the bio-diverse countries which in most case are developing countries. There are two major lines of arguments; the first one is the common heritage argument which proposes that biological and genetic resources are common heritages of mankind; hence there should be no restriction of ownership and the second line of argument, however, recognizes the sovereign right and ownership of states over their genetic resources hence without their permission no one can either access or own their resources. However, until 1990’s there have been acts of accessing and owning the genetic resources and related traditional knowledge without the consent and/or permission of the owning state of the resource. It is this act of plunder of genetic resources that depicted as an act of Bio-piracy. This free access regime was finally changed when the CBD was enacted in 1992 which intended to curb alarming rates of biodiversity loss and ensure that the discrepancy between resource provider and the technology developer became more balanced. One of the agenda which further triggered the debate over ownership of genetic resources is the issue of patenting of life forms. The TRIPS one of the agreements developed by WTO to outline trade related intellectual property rights requires member states to grant patents for any invention, both for products and processes, in all technology fields without discrimination i.e. including innovations conducted in relation to genetic resources, subject to standard requirements, including the requirements that the invention be novel and industrially applicable. The global north are for the patenting of life forms since, they claim that, it is an incentive for the innovations related with genetic resources while the global south on the contrary claim that patenting is simply a mechanism developed by the industrially developed ones’ to get access to monopoly and private ownership over our genetic resources and related knowledge, in other words which they still claim to be a systematic act of Bio-piracy. Many efforts have been made to settle this global issue. Among efforts made so far the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization is the most important and most recent. Its main aim is to ensure a fair and equitable sharing of benefits and providing internationally binding guideline on the issue. Our country Ethiopia has also encountered acts of bio-piracy over its endemic genetic/biological resources. In one way or another, the act of piracy starts and rests on access of genetic resources and benefit sharing as well. The act of improper access/plunder over our genetic resource ‘Teff’ is a recent and an ongoing phenomenon. Hence, this work seeks to put light on the international debate revolving around ownership and patenting over genetic resources and making a close scrutiny on the Ethiopian legal system. It specifically tries to access how prudent enough is our legal regulation (legal and institutional), finding the lope wholes that could possibly make us vulnerable and what legal and institutional amendments should be made to our legal system with a special reference to the Nagoya Protocol. This study concludes that most of the provisions of the Ethiopian legal system on Access and Benefit Sharing it is mostly similar with the recently developed international guidelines and conventions. This however, does not mean that it regulated well enough without leaving any room of acts of piracy. Especially in line of the most recent protocol (Nagoya Protocol) and experience of other countries there should be some amendments and introduction of new provision and institutional structures that the researcher recommends.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | K Law > K Law (General) |
| Divisions: | Africana |
| Depositing User: | Emmanuel Ndorimana |
| Date Deposited: | 12 Sep 2018 08:01 |
| Last Modified: | 12 Sep 2018 08:01 |
| URI: | http://thesisbank.jhia.ac.ke/id/eprint/5195 |
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