Papers by Kamalesh Adhikari
Pandora's Box, Oct 25, 2021
and Vietnam that entered into force in December 2018. The Partnership, like many other bilateral,... more and Vietnam that entered into force in December 2018. The Partnership, like many other bilateral, regional, and trans-regional trade treaties that have been enacted since the mid-1990s, is polemical, due in large part to its perceived effects on small scale agriculture, native biodiversity, and local and Indigenous peoples. Civil society criticisms have centred especially on how the Transprivatisation of plants, seeds, and other genetic resources at the expense of customary practices. The present article analyses these provisions, while also discussing the treatment of traditional knowledge in the Partnership, which is relatively progressive in comparison to prior free trade agreements. The article concludes by deriving lessons that civil society activists, local and Indigenous communities, and domestic authorities could derive from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, towards the end of identifying policy space for the protection of traditional knowledge and native biodiversity.
Debates about Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) have moved on in recent years. An initial focus on... more 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 market...
Trade Insight, Jul 2, 2020
The Journal of World Intellectual Property, 2019
Abstract The concept of food sovereignty is regularly conceived as one side of a binary. Thus, sc... more Abstract The concept of food sovereignty is regularly conceived as one side of a binary. Thus, scholars frequently juxtapose food sovereignty?as embodied in small-scale, customary, or peasant agriculture?against large-scale, industrial, and global modes of food production. The logic of this dichotomy suggests that the realization of food sovereignty is incompatible with the recognition of intellectual property for plants and seeds. In contrast, we argue that food sovereignty and intellectual property are not necessarily mutually exclusive concepts. Instead, food sovereignty activists and lawmakers alike are reimagining intellectual property to move beyond a focus on exclusive ownership, thus deploying it in novel ways. Our argument draws on extensive fieldwork, based on which we relate the experiences of two case study countries, namely Ecuador and Nepal. We describe how these countries recently embedded rights related to food sovereignty in reformed constitutional frameworks. We also evaluate how these novel constitutional food sovereignty rights shaped the making of other national laws in Ecuador and Nepal, including frameworks whose purpose is to protect plant varieties as intellectual property. Throughout the article, we demonstrate that countries can both promote food sovereignty and protect plant varieties as intellectual property. One way that governments can achieve this goal is to ensure that all relevant laws and policies?including those which relate to intellectual property for plant varieties, seed certification, and commercialization, and access and use of native genetic resources?are tailored to the realities of local food and seed systems.
Commercial Law Review, 2017
... Cover design : Indra Shrestha ISBN : 99933-53-45-0 Printed at : Modern Printing Press, Jamal,... more ... Cover design : Indra Shrestha ISBN : 99933-53-45-0 Printed at : Modern Printing Press, Jamal, Kathmandu Available from : South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics & Environment (SAWTEE) POBox 19366, 254, Lamtangeen Marg, Baluwatar, Kathmandu, Nepal. ...
The goal of the Trade Knowledge Network (TKN) is to foster long-term capacity to address the comp... more The goal of the Trade Knowledge Network (TKN) is to foster long-term capacity to address the complex issues of trade and sustainable development. TKN is an initiative of the International Institute for
Intellectual Property Law andPlant Protection, 2019
This chapter considers the history of the Pakistani seed sector, describing the role that public ... more This chapter considers the history of the Pakistani seed sector, describing the role that public and private institutions have played in the development and commercialisation of improved plant varieties in the country. It examines the nature of customary seed management practices, and the role that these and other seed transaction practices that have not been officially sanctioned play in the national seed economy. The chapter analyses the politics of the implementation and oversight of the Plant Breeders’ Rights Act in Pakistan. It explores the salient features of the Act, evaluating the ways in which the Pakistani framework is similar to or distinct from International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants 1991. The chapter discusses the possible implications that the Plant Breeders’ Rights Act could have for different actors in the national seed economy, including public institutions, private industry, and local farming communities.
This Report looks at the role that intellectual property law and the associated legal frameworks ... more This Report looks at the role that intellectual property law and the associated legal frameworks that regulate the access and use of biological resources potentially play in building a vibrant and sustainable Native Food Industry in Australia. The Report proceeds on the basis that if not managed correctly, these laws have the potential to restrict the development of the industry. At the same time, if managed correctly there is also a possibility that these laws might be used to support the Native Food Industry to develop novel foods, diversify domestic and export markets, and to find appropriate ways to address the interests of Indigenous Peoples, among others. In this Report, we identify the different places along the native food chain where legal issues potentially arise for individuals, enterprises, networks, and cooperatives associated with the Native Food Industry, including nursery operators, cultivators, wild harvesters, commodity traders, value adders, marketers, and exporters. In so doing, we first provide a brief overview of the different areas of law of importance to the Australian Native Food Industry, and discuss some of the ways in which these different areas of law may impact on the nascent Food Industry. Finally, we identify key problems and opportunities for the Native Food Industry, and possible solutions for consideration by AgriFutures Australia, the Native Food Industry, and other relevant bodies and stakeholders.
The goal of the Trade Knowledge Network (TKN) is to foster long-term capacity to address the comp... more The goal of the Trade Knowledge Network (TKN) is to foster long-term capacity to address the complex issues of trade and sustainable development. TKN is an initiative of the International Institute for Sustainable Development. The current phase of TKN research and policy engagement is kindly supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). In addition, TKN has received past support from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
This chapter provides an overview of the Sri Lankan intellectual property framework, while also d... more This chapter provides an overview of the Sri Lankan intellectual property framework, while also describing the evolution of the plant variety protection (PVP) Bill. It presents a series of arguments to explain why Sri Lanka should introduce protections for farmers’ varieties in a new version of the PVP Bill. The chapter offers two potential approaches that Sri Lanka could follow to protect farmers’ varieties. It argues that the Sri Lankan PVP Bill should be revised to incorporate protections for farmers’ varieties. The development of the PVP Bill was the result of a collaboration between the National Intellectual Property Office of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankan Department of Agriculture. The traditional varieties that have survived suffer from marginalisation, given that both public and private seed entities in Sri Lanka have focused solely on modern crop varieties in their breeding and commercialisation programmes.
This chapter explains how and why farmers’ varieties evolved as a legal construct in countries su... more This chapter explains how and why farmers’ varieties evolved as a legal construct in countries such as India, Thailand, and Malaysia, and how the approach that these countries have taken to recognise farmers’ varieties as intellectual property is different to that of Nepal. It describes the context in which Nepal created protections for farmers’ varieties under its evolving plant variety rights regime. The chapter explores how farmers’ understandings of different categories of native, indigenous, traditional, and local plant varieties were discussed by the drafting committee members when developing the notion of farmers’ varieties into a legal concept in Nepal’s Draft Bill on Plant Variety Protection and Farmers’ Rights. It discusses a number of questions and concerns that the case of the commercialisation of Pokhareli Jethobudho raises in relation to the conceptualisation of farmers’ varieties as intellectual property in Nepal.
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Papers by Kamalesh Adhikari