Access To Community Knowledge- A Critical Analysis Of ABS Mechanism
- IJLLR Journal
- Mar 25
- 1 min read
Pranav Anand Ojha, Assistant Professor, School of Law (VSL) at VIT-AP University
ABSTRACT
Biodiversity was one of several issues which attributed massive criticism for the implementation of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of the Intellectual Property Rights. The inclusion of traditional knowledge within its ambit heightened the issue. Traditional knowledge is the wealth of a community. However, the Trade-Related Aspects of the Intellectual Property Rights brought in the concept of privatisation along with the existing concept of identified authorship or ownership in Intellectual property rights. To tackle this, the Convention on Biological Diversity along with the Nagoya Protocol were adopted to curb this rapid privatization of natural resources and indigenous communities' cultural wealth. The position of the researchers is that a uniform definition of access in domestic laws will make Access and Benefit Sharing with regards to traditional knowledge more effective for the stakeholders, that is, the users and the providers. The paper aims to analyse the meaning of access to ascertain when the same can be called sustainable and not exploitative. Most importantly, this paper will try to identify the stakeholders who get affected by all such formalities.
Keywords: Access, Benefit Sharing, Biodiversity, Traditional Knowledge, Intellectual Property
