Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Biodiversity and climate change issues are coming together under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), according to a new working paper from the University of Edinburgh.
A new study has recommended changes at the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) in Geneva, which is seen as having an enormous impact on global agricultural research. Separately, World Trade Organization members recently discussed the trade impact of private standards for food.
Funding mechanisms and farmers’ rights were among the issues that captured the attention of member countries of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture during the biannual meeting of its Governing Body.
The Public Patent Foundation filed suit yesterday against Monsanto’s patents on genetically modified seeds with farmers asking to be protected against the biotechnology giant’s potential lawsuits in case of accidental contamination from plants grown with its seeds.
Scientific advances in life sciences, in particular health, are being evaluated by experts this week in Lyon, France, with the stated hope of bringing new answers to global health challenges, such as funding, costs, and innovation.
The annual report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, to the sixteenth session of the UN Human Rights Council yesterday is unequivocal. There must be a global agricultural shift toward more productive, environmentally friendly, sustainable modes of production, using natural resources to remediate world hunger, away from industrialised agriculture. In short, the world needs a shift to agroecology.
PARIS - The recently agreed international instrument to facilitate access to genetic resources and the equitable sharing of benefits accrued from those resources opened for signature last week, and the text is already getting mixed reviews from stakeholders.
Four developing countries have signed a recently completed international agreement on access to genetic resources and the fair retribution of benefits accrued from those resources. The protocol opened for signature in New York last week and efforts are underway to set up an information clearinghouse.
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The United Nations climate change conference closed at dawn last Saturday, with a make-do package of decisions advantageously labelled the “Cancun Agreements”. Intellectual property rights have all but disappeared from the texts as Bolivia stood alone in disagreement and was shush-gavelled.
As delegates in Cancun, Mexico, neared the end of their search this week for consensus on how to stop climate change, intellectual property issues were being set aside for later.
Global talks to address climate change being held in Cancun hobbled along last week amid calls for flexibility among parties. Japan declared its opposition to an extension of the Kyoto Protocol setting binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, civil society worried about transparency in the negotiating process, as countries started negotiations on specific texts.