Source: http://www.twn.my/title/tham-cn.htm
Timestamp: 2017-10-18 23:59:45
Document Index: 424885079

Matched Legal Cases: ['sui generis', 'Sui Generis', 'sui generis', 'sui generis', 'sui generis', 'Sui generis', 'sui generis', 'sui generis', 'sui generis']

Building and strengthening our sui generis rights
Some 45 representatives of indigenous, peasant, non-governmental, academic and governmental organisations from 19 countries, who met in Bangkok in early December, issued a statement reaffirming their opposition to the extension of intellectual property rights (IPRs) to all life forms, to biopiracy and the monopolisation of biodiversity-related knowledge through such IPRs. Below is the full text of their final statement.
"WE, 45 representatives of indigenous, peasant, non-governmental, academic and governmental organisations from 19 countries, came together on 1-6 December 1997 at Thammasat campus just outside Bangkok, Thailand, for an international seminar on Sui Generis Rights co-organised by Biothai and GRAIN.
We met to study, assess and develop our response to the increasing privatisation of biodiversity and local knowledge, especially as driven by the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and resulting legislation at the regional and national levels.
In Thai, 'Thammasat' means 'knowledge of nature'. It also means 'justice'. The name of our venue is central to us. Indigenous peoples, farmers and local communities have, over millenia, nurtured and developed the biodiversity on which humanity now depends. They have been wisely using their knowledge of nature to create sustainable food and health systems based on sharing their knowledge and biodiversity with others. Such community systems are being destroyed by economic development under the guise of free trade, Green Revolution agriculture and the new biotechnologies, and globalisation.
They are also being destroyed by the rampant pirating and monopolisation of biodiversity and related knowledge through the extension of intellectual property rights (IPRs) to life forms.
Perhaps no country exemplifies our concerns about WTO-enshrined globalisation as our host country.
At the time we were meeting, Thailand - and much of the rest of South-East and East Asia - is going through a profound crisis resulting from years of economic growth founded upon fleeting speculative investment.
The currency tailspin which started last July is accompanied by destabilisation of markets, loss of employment and cutting of public spending, and results in a clear loss of control over our own economies and livelihoods with the IMF taking the steering wheel.
The WTO TRIPs Agreement obliges developing countries to provide some form of IPRs on plant varieties by the year 2000. This may be done by patents or by some 'sui generis' rights system - meaning, in Latin, a system 'of its own kind'.
In 1999, one year before implementation in the developing countries, this provision will be reviewed and we are preparing ourselves for this review.
We reaffirm our total and frontal opposition to the extension of intellectual property rights to life forms, be it on humans, animals, plants, microorganisms, or their genes, cells and other parts. We are also adamantly against biopiracy and the monopolisation of biodiversity-related knowledge through such IPRs.
The sui generis provision of TRIPs gives WTO member states room to develop their own kind of IPRs protection for plant varieties, and many nations are now changing their national IPRs laws.
While some people look at the sui generis option in TRIPs as a window through which other forms of rights over biodiversity can be articulated in legislation, it is our conviction that such rights will be linked to IPRs and will result in new and further monopoly rights over plant varieties.
'Sui generis' perfectly describes the rights and systems we are struggling to defend - our 'own kind' of rights and systems. We recognise our sui generis rights to exist independently of the IPR-based sui generis systems promoted by the TRIPs Agreement.
Our rights are inalienable; they existed long before IPRs regimes were established. As legal, political, economic, social and cultural rights, they are part of peoples' sovereignty and therefore part of human rights.
As community/collective rights, they are indivisible and inter-generational; they include farmers' rights and apply to indigenous peoples, peasant and family farmers, fisherfolk and other local communities which derive their livelihoods from biodiversity.
Their place and expression is firstly at the local level, but they must also be recognised and guaranteed at the national and international levels.
It is on this basis that we will actively engage our societies from the village level through to our governments in the capitals to take part in the struggle for our sui generis rights, and on to the international level to oppose IPRs on all forms of life. This implies a whole range of information, research, campaign and coalition building activities over the long term. Some of the immediate tasks at hand are to:
Reinforce the defence mechanisms of local communities who are highly vulnerable to unbridled bioprospecting and to the introduction of genetically engineered organisms.
Support any calls by local communities for a moratorium on bioprospecting, and demand an immediate moratorium on the research, development, release, and trans-boundary movement of genetically engineered organisms.
Reaffirm the original intent of the CBD for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and prevent the CBD from becoming a mechanism for transnational corporations to trade in biodiversity in the name of 'access' and 'benefit-sharing'.
Mobilise a strong global movement engaging environmental, trade, agriculture, consumer, labour, health, food security, women's, and human rights and all people's organisations in these campaigns.
In the spirit of justice and embracing all knowledge of nature, we commit ourselves to the Thammasat Action Plan and invite other organisations, movements and peoples to join us in the struggle to achieve this vision".
* Carlos Correa, TRIPs expert
and resource person, Buenos Aires
* Advice & Services to Alternative Agriculture Projects (ASPTA)
* Cabinet of Senator Marina Silva
* Gisela S. de Alencar, Office of Legislative Research, House of Representatives
* Latin American Institute of Alternative Legal Services (ILSA)
* "Semillas" Group
* Senator Lorenzo Muelas Hurtado
* Silvia Rodriguez, National University of Costa Rica
* Friends of the Earth Costa Rica (AECO-FoE)
* Small Farmers Association of
Costa Rica (UPANacional)
* Accion Ecologica
* Dr Regassa Feyissa, Biodiversity Institute
* Mr Imeru Tamerat, Environmental
* Dan Leskian, TRIPs expert
and resource person, Hamburg
* Research Foundation for Science, Technology
* Indira Jaising, Supreme Court
Advocate Indonesia
* Pesticides Action Network
(PAN Indonesia)
* Stevanus Wangsit, World Food Day Farmers and Fishers Movement of Indonesia (SPTNHPS)
* Manny Yap, PDG
* Farmer-Scientist Partnership for Development (MASIPAG)
* Oscar Zamora, University of the Philippines, Los Banos
* David Fig, University of Witwatersrand
* Thai Network on Community Rights and Biodiversity (BIOTHAI)
* Forum of the Poor
* Technology for Rural and Ecological Enrichment (TREE)
* Project for Ecological Recovery (PER)
* Somsak Daranoot, Dept of Agriculture
* Jaroen Compeerapap, Chulalongkorn University
* Jakkrit Khuanpot, Sukhothai Thammathirat University
* Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP)
* Southern African Traditional Leaders' Council for the Management of Natural Resources
* Rosemary Makano, Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources
* Robert Mshana, Organization of African Unity (OAU)
* Genetic Resources Action International (GRAIN)