Perplexed About International Policy On GR, TK and TCEs? Here’s A Book

By Catherine Saez

Two scientists with a connection to Geneva have published an unorthodox e-book entitled, Guide for the perplexed entering the Maze of Genetic Resources Traditional Knowledge and Folklore.

Book co-author Anne Gut is a cellular biologist formerly working at the Medicine Faculty of the University of Geneva, and Bruno Vitale, the other co-author of the book is a theoretical physicist, formerly at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), and professor of quantum mechanics at the Science Faculty of the University of Naples.

The e-book [doc] proposes to help its readers understand the whys and wherefores of the discussions taking place in international organisations on genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore, notably at the World Intellectual Property Organization in the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC). The IGC is working on an international instrument or instruments to prevent misuse and misappropriation of those cultural and genetic resources.

WIPO has spent 10 years working on definitions and glossaries “without a single word on belief versus knowledge, and traditional practices versus methodological precautions,” Vitale told Intellectual Property Watch.

The publication also explores the origins and motivations at the root of the World Health Organization involvement in traditional medical knowledge, and their attempt to define “methodological guidelines,” Vitale said.

In the book, the authors say they had originally been researching on IP and access to medicines and on the role of international organisations in development and health in poor countries when they realised that part of the interplay between IP rights and access to essential drugs was taking place at WIPO.

The authors say they were observers at the IGC in 2012 and 2013 for a Swiss nongovernmental organisation, Centrale Sanitaire Suisse Romande.

The e-book, which also may be obtained by sending a request to the following address: deuxkamikaze2@yahoo.com, [corrected] is published under a Creative Commons Licence.