Book reviews
Book Review of Legal Aspects of Implementing the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety by Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, Frederic Perron-Welch, and Christine Frison, eds.
(2014) 10:1 McGill International Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy 137
Book Review of Intellectual Property Rights and the Life Science Industries: Past, Present and Future, 2nd ed., by Graham Dutfield
(2010) 7:2 Canadian Journal of Law and Technology 99
The pharmaceutical industry has greatly benefitted from using intellectual property law to optimize investment in pharmaceutical research and development. Graham Dutfield’s book explores how that came to be, and what the future may hold for the continued co-evolution of life sciences, business and intellectual property regimes, especially patents. This work mainly discusses what it means to ‘invent’ in the life sciences, and how patent law in this area is shaped not only by economic interests, but also by highly contestable assumptions concerning life, science and theboundaries to be drawn between the natural and the human-made. Graham Dutfield’s analysis is accessible, balanced, and concise. This volume is an appropriate and compelling read for a wide audience from different disciplinary and professional backgrounds.
Book Review of Law, Knowledge, Culture: The Production of Indigenous Knowledge in Intellectual Property Law by Jane E Anderson
(2009) 6:3 SCRIPTed 770
Jane E. Anderson examines how diverse factors have shaped the negotiation of Indigenous knowledge (IK), especially in the evolution of Australian copyright. The emergence of claims to protect IK in an intellectual property framework are contextualized in the colonialist experience ofexploitation. Part 1 gives a history of IP, showing that it is not a neutral area of law. IP related to IK is marked by the power relationship between Indigenous and settler peoples. The IP framework pigeonholes IK in an effort to maintain a facade of objectivity in a clearly subjective area of law. Part 2 discusses the politics of law, and the role of IP law in the commoditization of Aboriginal art/IK and co-optation of the cultural aspects of that art. Chapter 6 discusses case law regarding IK in IP, and underscores the judicial conservatism in challenging the rigid categories of IP law. Part 3 discusses culture as the only factor that differentiates IK within IP law. The author notes that appealing to culture in IP falsely assumes homogeneity of Indigenous peoples and perpetuates colonial bias and hegemony. The author gives a brief exploration of international instruments protecting IK, but fails to discuss the importance of the Convention on Biological Diversity for IK. The author concludes with a critique of the Australian national approach to IK. This is book is an interesting addition to the body of scholarship at the interface of IK and IP law. It is well-researched and well-written and would be resourceful for scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds.
Book Review of Global Biopiracy: Patents, Plants, and Indigenous Knowledge by Ikechi Mgbeoji
(2006) 39:2 University of British Columbia Law Review 397
The past 25 years have seen a charged discourse about bio-piracy: the unequal access to benefits of genetic resources and local knowledge, and the intellectual property system’s failure to adequately recognize Indigenous or non-western knowledge, while expanding property rights over life forms. Ikechi Mgbeoji fills a need for a specific definition of bio-piracy and chronicles bio-piracy as a legal and social phenomenon. The book‘s thesis is that the industrialized world uses “two distinct but mutually re-enforcing strategies” to perpetuate bio-piracy: institutional/juridical mechanism, and a gendered and racist construct of indigenous epistemology. Chapter 1 puts bio-piracy in historical perspective, and argues that national and global patent systems are vulnerable to manipulation and do not accommodate non-Western world views. Chapter 3 addresses international law concerning the conservation and use of plants and Indigenous knowledge, andexamines the implications of bio-piracy for biological and cultural diversity. Chapter 4 expands on Mgbeoji’s central thesis. Chapter 5 examines “the appropriative function of the interplay between patent systems of industrialized states and plant breeders’ rights.” The author discusses state responsibility under international law, arguing for the extension of such responsibilities to curb the menace of bio-piracy. The author explores and critiques various strategies of addressing bio-piracy, and elaborates on changes that would need to be made to the existing patent system to accommodate Indigenous knowledge.
Book Review of Legal Issues in Electronic Commerce, 2nd ed., by R.L. Campbell
(2006) 5:1 Canadian Journal of Law and Technology 53
This collection of works is part of the Canadian Legal Studies Series. The book takes a seven-part outlook on contemporary issues in electronic commerce in deftly organized way that captures subjects that are extremely interrelated. Part 1 is a general introduction to the complex nature of cyberspace, electronic commerce and information technologies, and the challenges they pose for social, legal, and economic regulation. Part 2 is a collection of materials discussing the dynamics of electronic commerce from diverse disciplinary perspectives. Parts 3 and 4 are respectively devoted to materials dealing with the sexy objects of regulation and jurisdiction in relation to cyberspace. Part 5 deals with domain names. Part 6 is titled “local functional issues”, and Part 7 concludes the work. This work draws from an impressive repository of diverse sources, making it a comprehensive work for mainstream researchers on a collection of fast evolving subject matters. The book draws very heavily on American law and legal issues and with moderate focus on Canadian jurisdiction in a manner that tempts one to think about a more exact title for the book than the present. This is an especially useful work for introducing researchers to the relevant issues in the field, and can help inspire meaningful and topical research projects.
Book Review of Biotechnology Unglued: Science, Society, and Social Cohesion by Michael D. Mehta, ed.
(2005) 4:2 Canadian Journal of Law and Technology 147
In Biotechnology Unglued, Michael D. Mehta and an interdisciplinary team of experts explore “how advances in agricultural, medical, and forensic biotechnology may threaten the socialcohesiveness of different kinds of communities and at different scales”. The editor begins by discussing social cohesion and argue that a more cohesive society is better able to adjust to change, and can either minimize injustice or entrench the conditions that enable injustice. The authors explore how biotechnologies disrupt or “unglue” less cohesive communities, while socially cohesive communities stand to gain from new biotechnologies. The authors discuss biotechnologies in different contexts, such as the variegated impacts of genetically-modified agriculture on small- and large-scale farms, on communities in developing countries with low social cohesion, or the available state responses to genetically-modified foods in highly cohesive European societies in comparison to the American situation. The context and experience for the introduction and application of biotechnology strategies in health, in the criminal justice system and in academia are also discussed. The book is written in accessible language and it is appropriate for scholars or professionals in the the arts and sciences. It provides an engaging, thoughtful and practical analysis that breaks from traditional criticisms of biotechnology. However, it neglects crucial issues in biotechnology andsocial cohesion such as intellectual property rights, indigenous peoples and knowledge, disability, and how biotechnology policies and strategies are implicated in the controversial subject of gene therapy.
Book Review of Collective Insecurity: The Liberian Crisis, Unilateralism & Global Order by Ikechi Mgbeoji
(Spring 2004) 27:1 Dalhousie Law Journal 285
This arrangement raises several questions: How is this state of affairs possible in 21st century Africa? How is it that Charles Taylor, a power-hungry and known felon, became an elected president of Liberia in the first place, one that left in his trail a crisis-infested country that constitutes a threat to West African regional security? And finally, what manner of collective international outside intervention is appropriate to tackle the recurring fratricidal crisis in Africa?
Mgbeoji argues that the regimes of “internal illegitimacy,” “external indifference,” and complicity that enabled dictators like Doe to dominate the African political landscape could not last. Nonetheless, Mgbeoji finds that ECOWAS intervention fulfills all the conditions for the employment of collective security both under customary international law and ECOWAS treaty framework. ”Equitably dismantled?!” How is that feat to be achieved? Further, is Mgbeoji’s call limited to Africa or is it global? It is difficult envisioning how Mgbeoji’s terse treatise on legitimacy and his call for restoration of African precolonial political structures and value systems can spur a policy of transformation and change from Africa’s present reality.