Beyond Intellectual Property: Toward Traditional Resource Rights for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities

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International Development Research Centre, 1996 - 303 pages
The concept of traditional resource rights (TRR) reflects the necessity of rethinking the limited and limiting concept of intellectual property rights (IPR). The TRR concept can accommodate a wide range of relevant international agreements as a basis for a sui-generis system of protection for indigenous peoples and their intellectual, natural, and technological resources. This book introduces the TRR concept in a manner organised around a series of questions that might emerge in a community when a visitor arrives to collect information or cultural or biogenetic materials. Each chapter begins with a summary of the main issues it addresses and ends with options and suggested actions. Issues discussed include who benefits from traditional resources, the rights of communities to approve or resist commercialisation, types of potential legal action, the applicability of traditional IPR, development of community systems for protecting TRR, the use of binding or non-binding international agreements, and TRR funding. Examples are included of creative strategies and unique solutions that indigenous communities have developed for protecting and benefiting from TRR.

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Contents

Chapter
5
Chapter
10
Chapter 2
21
Copyright

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About the author (1996)

Darrell Posey is a Research Professor at the Federal University of Maranhao, Sao Luis, Brazil. He is also a Fellow of Linacre College and Director of the Programme for Traditional Resource Rights at Mansfield College. Dr Posey is Past President of the International Society for Ethnobiology and a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London. He is a recipient of the international Sierra Club's Chico Mendes Award and the UNEP Global 500 Roll of Honour Award. Graham Dutfield is Senior Research Fellow at Queen Mary College London. He is co-editor of Trading in Knowledge (2003, ) and Intellectual Property Rights, Trade and Biodiversity (2002).

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