Ramifications of WIPO IGC for IP and Development

In Protecting Traditional Knowledge: The WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore
D. F. Robinson, A. Abdel-Latif & P. Roffe, eds.
(New York: Routledge, 2017), pp. 339-346

Over the years, the idea of traditional knowledge has progressively unraveled as a traction point for complex issue linkages between intellectual property and, for example, genetic resources, biodiversity conservation, the rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (ILCs), food, nutritional and environmental security. Because traditional knowledge cuts across regimes and is crucial to the lived realities of the world’s impoverished regions and peoples, it has become a site for engaging, testing, and even challenging the development imperative in intellectual property. In this short chapter I reflect on the ramifications of the WIPO IGC process for intellectual property and development, and consider the implications of the wobbly nature of the seemingly interminable IGC process for developing countries.

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