Justice and the Convention on Biological Diversity

Ethics and International Affairs

Volumn 23, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 267-280

  Schroeder, Doris ^a   Pogge, Thomas ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Benefit Sharing; Convention on Biological Diversity; International Justice

Indexed keywords

EID: 77950774806     PISSN: 08926794     EISSN: 17477093     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-7093.2009.00217.x     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), 1992, Article 1: Objectives; available at www.cbd.int/convention/convention.shtml (accessed April 14, 2008). The resources covered by the CBD are animals, plants, microorganisms, and traditional knowledge. All examples used in this paper refer to plants. As a result, we shall refer to the protection of germplasm regularly, although this term does not, obviously, apply to traditional knowledge.
2. The resources covered by the CBD are animals
3. plants, microorganisms, and traditional knowledge., Preamble.
4. Doris Schroeder, “Benefit Sharing: It's Time for a Definition,” Journal of Medical Ethics 33 (2007), pp. 205—209.
5. Convention on Biological Diversity, 1995 Decision II/11, Access to Genetic Resources; available at www.cbd.int/decisions/?m=COP-02&id=7084&lg=0 (accessed June 18, 2009).
6. This revision and the Clinton administration's role in imposing it are discussed in Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008), pp. 131—132.
7. HUGO Ethics Committee, Statement on Benefit Sharing (2000); available at www.eubios.info/BENSHARE.htm (accessed June 18, 2009).
8. Vandana Shiva, The Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology and Politics (London: Zed Books, 1991), p. 257.
9. Other activist academics and politicians who have highlighted the exploitative nature or unfairness of the first-come, first-served principle are Gurdial Singh Nijar, In Defence of Local Community Knowledge and Biodiversity: A Conceptual Framework and the Essential Elements of a Rights Regime (Penang, Malaysia: Third World Network, 1996)
10. Pat R. Mooney, Seeds of the Earth: A Private or Public Resource? (London: International Coalition for Development Action, 1969)
11. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, “The Convention on Biological Diversity, Intellectual Property Rights and the Interests of the South,” in Vandana Shiva, ed., Biodiversity Conservation: Whose Resources? Whose Knowledge? (New Delhi: Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, 1994), pp. 198—215.
12. Krishna Ravi Srinivas, “Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights: A Note on Some Issues, Some Solutions and Some Suggestions,” Asian Journal of WTO & International Health Law and Policy 3 (2008), p. 88.
13. Holmes Rolston III, “Environmental Protection and an Equitable International Order: Ethics after the Earth Summit,” Business Ethics Quarterly 5, no. 4 (1995), p. 746.
14. R. Sridhar and Usha S. Karsten Wolff, “Commodification of Nature and Knowledge” (paper presented at the National Conference on Traditional Knowledge Systems, Intellectual Property Rights and Their Relevance for Sustainable Development, Delhi, November 24—26, 2008), p. 2
15. Silvia Ribeiro, “The Traps of ‘Benefit Sharing’,” in Beth Burrows, ed., The Catch: Perspectives in Benefit Sharing (Washington, D.C.: Edmonds Institute, 2005), p. 49.
16. The word “judicandum” is from the Latin: that which is to be judged. Compare Thomas Pogge, “Justice,” in Donald M. Borchert, ed., Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 4, 2nd ed. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2006), pp. 862—870.
17. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999 [1971]), pp. 3, 513, and back cover.
18. Brendan F. Brown, ed., The Natural Law Reader (New York: Oceana Publications, 1960).
19. John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), p. 281.
20. Bob Brecher, Torture and the Ticking Bomb (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2007).
21. Rawls, Theory of Justice.
22. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974).
23. It would go beyond the scope of this paper to explain the other two main concepts of justice—namely, corrective and retributive justice. But see Pogge, “Justice.”
24. See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Harris Rackham (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1934), pp. 279—282.
25. William Beveridge, Social Insurance and Allied Services (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1942).
26. Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights; and Phillip Cole, Philosophies of Exclusion: Liberal Political Theory and Immigration (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001).
27. General Assembly of the United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948; available at www.un.org/Overview/rights.html (accessed April 15, 2008).
28. Harry Frankfurt, “Equality as a Moral Ideal,” Ethics 98, no. 1 (1987), pp. 21—43
29. Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 217—244.
30. “Prior art” is an expression used in patent law to describe all information in the public domain, which would be relevant to an applicant's claim of originality.
31. “EPO Neem Patent Revocation Revives Biopiracy Debate,” Nature Biotechnology 23, no. 5 (2005), pp. 511 —512.
32. See Schroeder, “Benefit Sharing.”
33. Doris Schroeder and Carolina Lasen-Diaz, “Sharing the Benefit of Genetic Resources: From Biodiversity to Human Genetics,” Developing World Bioethics6, no. 3(2006), pp. 135—143
34. Thomas Pogge, “Testing Our Drugs on the Poor Abroad,” in Jennifer S. Hawkins and Ezekiel J. Emanuel, eds., Exploitation and Developing Countries: The Ethics of Clinical Research (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008), pp. 105—141.
35. Bram de Jonge and Michiel Korthals, “Vicissitudes of Benefit Sharing of Crop Genetic Resources: Downstream and Upstream,” Developing World Bioethics 6, no. 3 (2006), p. 152.
36. FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), “1.02 Billion People Hungry,” news release, June 19, 2009; available at www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/20568/icode/
37. World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: Special Focus on Sanitation (New York and Geneva: UNICEF and WHO, 2008); available at www.wssinfo.org/en/40_MDG2008.html
38. Fogarty International Center for Advanced Study in the Health Sciences, “Strategic Plan: Fiscal Years 2000—2003” (Bethesda, Md.: National Institutes of Health, n.d.); available at www.fic.nih.gov/about/plan/exec_summary.htm.
39. Roshni Karwal, “Policy Advocacy and Partnerships for Children's Rights,” 2008; available at www.unicef.org/policyanalysis/index_45740.html.
40. It is beyond the scope of this paper to outline why today's international economic order is unjust. For a detailed justification of this claim, see Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights.
41. While we argue that the CBD promotes justice, we do not maintain that it cannot give rise to new cases of injustice. For instance, a local community may be the originator of traditional knowledge, but an autocratic government could retain funds paid on behalf of the community to use for its own purposes. Or CBD funds could serve as window dressing for national governments unwilling to invest in essential services. See also Doris Schroeder and Roger Chennells, “Benefit Sharing and Access to Essential Health Care: A Happy Marriage,” Medicine and Law 27, no. 1 (2008), pp. 53—69