Intellectual Property Rights and the Politics of Food - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 399

developing nations from being negotiated in these forums. Although developing nations
achieved some success in forums other than the WTO, developed nations registered
gains as many new members joined the 1991 UPOV Convention. Baumgartner's (2011)
study of regime complexity and fluidity found that weak actors had more influence and
power in biodiversity-related intellectual property rights than plant genetic resources
used in agriculture. The elements that make up the regime complex consist of residues
of multiple agreements, treaties, and conventions with different objectives; harmoniz-
ing these protocols at different levels (national and global) remains a distant dream. The
Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing
of Benefits Arising from their Utilization was negotiated in 2010 under the framework
convention of the Convention on Biological Diversity; what “fair and equitable” means
in practice and how enforcement of provisions will harmonize with other elements of
the regime complex governing intellectual property remain unclear. Moreover, the chal-
lenges of climate change and the impact of synthetic biology both present conceptual
and political challenges for the Nagoya Protocol, which remains only one part of the
complex. The fragmented and unstable nature of the regime complex renders more dif-
ficult any search for solutions to global food security and farmer welfare.
A certain irony is evident in the long-term evolution of this regime complex. In the
progression from a property framework of “Common Heritage” to one of “Common
Concern of Human Kind,” rights over plant genetic resources were settled on sovereign
states, but without creating noticeably better governance or more effective coordination
at the global level. The decades to come will almost certainly make cooperation more
consequential than ever before, as the challenges—both political and technical—fac-
ing food security and sustainability of agriculture are daunting.30 What role intellec-
tual property rights per se will play, and how property claims will affect the politics of
food in the years to come, are open questions. Extension of intellectual property rights
to plant genetic resources is not an unmixed blessing. While strong property rights
have spurred innovation and incentivized development of agricultural biotechnology,
there is strong political opposition to extending rights down the genomic chain. If plant
genetic resources are treated as a public good with no restrictions on access and use,
sharing is facilitated, but the effect has not always been beneficial for those develop-
ing countries that are significant centers of origin for many crops. Commodification of
genetic resources through intellectual property rights, then, does promote innovation,
but simultaneously it raises questions of access and use of these rights to restrict further
innovation—the problem of the anti-commons. Striking a balance between these two
poles is a challenging task facing international agencies, national governments, and rel-
evant organizations.
Notes
1. See Raustiala and Sprigman (2012) on copyrights and cuisines; see Barham and Sylvander
(2012) on geographical indications.