Commodifying Agricultural Biodiversity and Development‐Related Issues

In this article, I examine whether the contemporary regional intellectual property (IP) agreements negotiated by West African countries are more suitable than multilateral agreements to advance food security in the region, based on the provisions they make for applying the differentiation principle. In this paper, the term "West Africa" is used to designate the 15 countries that are members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the major regional organization in the area (The founding members of ECOWAS were:

Section: Integrating Food Security In West Africa's Ip-related Agreements: the Differentiation Principlementioning

confidence: 99%

Maximizing the differentiation principle in regional IP treaties to advance food security: Limitations in West Africa's regional IP and trade regime

Ugwu

2021

“…Under the Act, the local domestic plant variety needs not be novel, but it must pass the other certain eligibility standards, namely, distinctness, uniformity, and stability, (DUS) . Local varieties developed by farmers and local communities are usually more heterogeneous genetically and less stable and therefore they will not easily qualify the criteria of DUS in Thailand's PVP provisions (Chiarolla, ).…”

Section: Major Concerns For the Rights Of Farmers And Local Societiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protection of Plant Varieties in Thailand

Lertdhamtewe

2014

Thailand's plant protection regime presents a unique sui generis plant protection system, which is used as a model by several developing nations in Asia. The current Thai Plant Variety Protection (PVP) law has attracted some criticism, and whether or not farmers and breeders actually benefit from the system is in doubt. The questions this situation raises are: has Thailand adopted clear, coherent, and workable rules for plant variety protection in response to the needs of the nation? By highlighting the salient features of the Thai plant protection regime, this article addresses major concerns of the rights of farmers, local communities, and plant breeders. It is suggested that the protection of plant varieties is vital to Thailand, considering the fact that agriculture represents a fundamental economic activity and the livelihood of a large section of the total population; therefore, introducing IPRs in agriculture via the PVP regime is critical to the development of agriculture in Thailand. Thus, a new approach to the IP protection of plant varieties is desirable to ensure the unique needs of the nation, the validity of national legislation, and the long-term promotion of agricultural development and sustainability in Thailand.

“…However, this study notes that there is a strong correlation between restrictions on access to PGRFA (especially patents, which are the strongest form of protection for plant‐related inventions) and benefit sharing. By contrast, sui generis systems of plant variety protection do not generate benefits which can be captured in the form of compulsory payments to the MLS because of the breeders' exemption (Chiarolla, 2006). 45 However, strong monopoly protection for intermediate products may be at odds with the ITPGRFA open access regime.…”

Section: Conclusion and Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant Patenting, Benefit Sharing and the Law Applicable to the Food and Agriculture Organisation Standard Material Transfer Agreement

Chiarolla

2008

Self Cite

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) should make an enormous contribution to international equity in terms of the way plant genetic resources are transferred and agricultural research is conducted. However, its implementation remains a critical challenge for the majority of the developing countries. The literature has focused on access and benefit sharing discussions from the standpoint of public international law and the interaction between international regimes. By contrast, the original contribution of this article is to address the question of the applicable law to the Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA). The SMTA is an essential operational mechanism of the ITPGRFA implementation. However, it operates as an international commercial contract, which creates specific rights and obligations between the parties under private law. This article considers the choice of law clause contained in the SMTA, its reference to the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts and the supplementary use of national law. It concludes that arbitrators may supplement non‐national and international standards with substantive law principles of domestic origin only in three narrow exceptions, namely the following cases: (1) national “mandatory” provisions; (2) gaps within applicable non‐national and international standards; and (3) additional choice of law clauses inserted by the parties in accordance with article 6.6 of the SMTA. The applicable law to the SMTA and the balance between non‐national, international and national standards will play an important role in defining both the scope and the impact of benefit sharing on international equity in agriculture.