How Do You Patent a Landscape? The Perils of Dichotomizing Cultural and Intellectual Property

International Journal of Cultural Property

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 14-47

  Barsh, Russel Lawrence ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84856027570     PISSN: 09407391     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0940739199770608     Document Type: Article

References (99)

1. United Nations Department of Public Information, Mrs. Rigoberta Menchu Tum Proposes the Creation of a High Commission for Indigenous Populations, U.N. Press Release No. DH/V/406 (June 21, 1993), at 2.
2. See, e.g., Surendra J. Patel, Can the Intellectual Property Rights System Serve the Interests of Indigenous Knowledge? Valuing Local Knowledge 305 (Stephen B. Brush and Doreen Stabinski eds., Island Press, Washington D.C. 1996).
3. J. Bronowski, Science and Human Values (Harper & Row, New York 1959, rev. ed. 1965).
4. E.g., Philippe Descola, In the Society of Nature; A Native Ecology in Amazonia (Nora Scott trans., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1994)
5. Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, Cosmology as Ecological Analysis: A View from the Rain Forest, 11 Man 307 (1976).
6. Henry T. Lewis and Theresa A. Ferguson, Yards, Corridors, and Mosaics: How to Burn a Boreal Forest, 16 Human Ecology 57 (1988)
7. Russel L. Barsh, Fire on the Land, 23 Alternatives Journal 36 (Fall 1997).
8. E.g., Christopher Anand Scott and Michael F. Walter, Local Knowledge and Conventional Soil Science Approaches to Erosional Processes in the Shivalik Himalaya, 13 Mountain Research and Development 61, 71 (1993).
9. See, e.g., Coevolution (Matthew H. Nitecki ed., University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1983), for discussions of long-term physical as well as behavioral accomodations between species.
10. Russel L. Barsh, Food Security, Food Hegemony, and Charismatic Animals, in Towards a Sustainable Whaling Regime (Robert L. Friedheim ed., MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, in press).
11. David Lewis, We, the Navigators: The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific 181–215 (University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 1972)
12. Saul H. Reisenberg, The Organisation of Navigational Knowledge on Puluwat, Pacific Navigation and Voyaging: Polynesian Society Memoir No. 39 91 (Ben R. Finney ed., The Polynesian Society, Wellington 1976).
13. J. Stephen Lansing, Priests and Programmers: Technologies of Power in the Engineered Landscape of Bali (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 1991).
14. Howard Morphy, Landscape and the Reproduction of the Ancestral Past, The Anthropology of Landscape: Perspectives on Place and Space (Eric Hirsch and Michael O'Hanlon eds., Clarendon Press, Oxford 1995)
15. Bruce Chatwin, Songlines (Random House, New York 1987).
16. E.g., Steven Feld, Sound as a Symbolic System: The Kaluli Drum, The Varieties of Sensory Experience: A Sourcebook in the Anthropology of the Senses 79 (David Howes ed., University of Toronto Press, Toronto 1991)
17. Edward Schieffelin, The Sorrow of the Lonely and the Burning of the Dancers (St. Martin's Press, New York 1976)
18. Anya Peterson Royce, The Anthropology of Dance 192–211 (Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1977).
19. Mark L. Winston, The Biology of the Honey Bee 150–168 (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 1987).
20. E.g., Robin McGrath, Maps as Metaphor; One Hundred Years of Inuit Cartography, 3 Inuit Art Quarterly 6 (Spring 1988)
21. Selwyn Dewdney, The Sacred Scrolls of the Southern Ojibway (University of Toronto Press, Toronto 1975)
22. Hugh Brody, Maps and Dreams: Indians and the British Columbia Frontier 34- 48 (Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver 1981).
23. O. A. W. Dilke, Greek and Roman Maps (Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1985).
24. Dramatically recounted by the poet Lucan [Marcus Annaeus Lucanus] in his Latin epic of the Roman civil war, Pharsalia 78- 79 (Robert Graves trans., Penguin Books 1956).
25. See, generally, Nigel Pennick, Celtic Sacred Landscapes (Thames & Hudson, New York 1996).
26. Joseph G. Jorgensen, Land Is Cultural, So Is a Commodity: The Locus of Differences Among Indians, Cowboys, Sod-Busters, and Environmentalists, 12 The Journal of Ethnic Studies 3 (1984).
27. I have published elsewhere on two of these legal systems: Russel L. Barsh, Backfire from Boldt: The Judicial Transformation of a Coast Salish Proprietary Fishery into a Commons, 4 Western Legal History 85 (1991)
28. and Russel L. Barsh and Joe B. Marshall, Mi'kmaw (Micmaq) Constitutional Law, Encyclopedia of Native American Legal Traditions 192 (Bruce E. Johansen ed., Greenwood Press, Westport, CT 1998).
29. Barsh, Backfire from Boldt, Encyclopedia of Native American Legal Traditions
30. Wayne Suttles, Coast Salish Essays 15–63 (University of Washington, Seattle 1987)
31. Kalervo Oberg, The Social Economy of the Tlingit Indians, 55–64 (University of Washington, Seattle 1973).
32. See similarly Nancy M. Williams, The Yolngu and Their Land: A System of Land Tenure and the Fight for Its Recognition (Stanford University Press, Stanford 1986)
33. Nancy M. Williams, A Boundary to Cross: Observations of Yolngu Boundaries and Permission, in Resource Managers: North American and Australian Hunter-Gatherers 131 (Nancy M. Williams and Eugene S. Hunn eds., Westview Press, Boulder, CO 1992).
34. Some bundles and pipes, as well as botanical and pharmaceutical knowledge, have also been maintained by individual ceremonialists and healers who function, as it were, around the edges of the societies. Similarly, see C. Den Bigelaar and M. A. Gold, The Use and Value of Multiple Methods to Capture the Diversity of Endogenous Agroforestry Knowledge: An Example from Rwanda, 30 Agroforestry Systems 263 (1995).
35. Compare the rotation of cargo within Maya society, Frank Cancian, Economics and Prestige in a Maya Community: The Religious Cargo System in Zinacantan (Stanford University Press, Stanford 1965).
36. As stressed by Leroy Little Bear, Aboriginal Relationships to the Land and Resources, in Sacred Lands: Aboriginal World Views, Claims, and Conflicts 15 (Jill Oakes, Rick Riewe, Kathi Kinew and Elaine Maloney eds., University of Alberta, Edmonton 1998).
37. José R. Martínez Cobo, Study of the Problem of Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations: Volume V: Conclusions, Proposals and Recommendations, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1988/7/Add.4 (1987), at 16 [originally published in 1983; hereafter Martínez Cobo, Study].
38. Erica-Irene Daes, Protection of the Heritage of Indigenous People: Preliminary Report, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1994/31 (1994), at 3.
39. Daes, id. at 2–3, drew considerably on the Kari-Oca and Mataatua Declarations.
40. Mensaje de la Coordinadora Indígena Campesina de Agroforesteria Comunitaria Centroamericana con ocasión del Día Mundial del Ambiente, August 7, 1998 [author's translation].
41. UNESCO, The Protection of Movable Cultural Property I: Compendium of Legislative Texts 335, 336-337 (UNESCO, Paris 1984).
42. For background on the selection of this site, see George F. MacDonald, Ninstints Haida World Heritage Site (University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver 1983).
43. Russel L. Barsh, Canada's Aboriginal Peoples: Social Integration or Disintegration? 14 Canadian Journal of Native Studies 1, 5–9 (1994).
44. Protected Areas in Our Modern World: Proceedings of a Workshop held as part of the IUCN World Conservation Congress held in Montreal, Canada, October 18 and 21, 1996 (Neil Munro ed., Parks Canada, Halifax, Nova Scotia 1997).
45. Henry T. Lewis, Ecological and Technological Knowledge of Fire: Aborigines Versus Park Rangers in Northern Australia, 91 American Anthropologist 940 (1989).
46. Stan Stevens, The Legacy of Yellowstone, in Conservation Through Cultural Survival: Indigenous Peoples and Protected Areas 13 (Stan Stevens ed., Island Press, Washington, D.C. 1997)
47. International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Report of the Fourth Global Biodiversity Forum 1996 Canada 24–29 (IUCN, Gland, Switzerland 1997).
48. UNESCO, Thinking Ahead: UNESCO and the Challenges of Tomorrow 282 (UNESCO, Paris 1977)
49. Final Report of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, U.N. Doc. A/ CONF.48/14 (United Nations General Assembly, 27th Sess. 1972).
50. U.N. General Assembly Resolution 2997 (XXVII), Institutional and Financial Arrangements for International Environmental Co-operation (December 15, 1972); the quoted text is from paragraph 11, preamble.
51. UNESCO, Biosphere Reserves: The Seville Strategy and the Statutory Framework of the World Network 3 (UNESCO, Paris 1996).
52. Group of Experts on the International Protection of Expressions of Folklore by Intellectual Property, On the International Regulation of the “Intellectual Property Aspects” of Folklore, U.N. Doc. UNESCO/WIPO/FOLK/GEI.1/2 (1984), at 1–2 [hereinafter Group of Experts on Folklore].
53. As reviewed by Erica-Irene Daes, Study on the Protection of the Cultural and Intellectual Property of Indigenous Peoples, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/28 (1993), at 32 [hereinafter Daes, Study]; the present author served as Dr. Daes's consultant.
54. see Daes, Study, Final Acts, at 31
55. Group of Experts on Folkore, Final Acts, at 15.
56. Group of Experts on Folkore, Final Acts, at 16.
57. Article 1 of the Model Provisions, discussed critically by the Group of Experts on Folklore, Final Acts, at 21–23.
58. UNESCO and the Struggle Against Ethnocide: Declaration of San José, December 1981 (UNESCO, Paris n.d.) at 1, paragraph 3.
59. Article 3 of the convention, The Protection of Movable Cultural Property, Id., at 337.
60. U.N. General Assembly Resolution 52/108, International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (December 12, 1997), operative paragraph 3; this language has been included in each annual assembly resolution on the decade since 1994.
61. See, e.g., DIVERSITAS: An International Programme of Biodiversity Science, Operational Plan 33–34 (UNESCO, Paris 1996), which supports human-ecological and archaeological research on indigenous peoples by universities without formal linkages to any indigenous institutions.
62. See ILO, Indigenous Peoples: Living and Working Conditions of Aboriginal Populations in Independent Countries (ILO, Geneva 1953).
63. ILO, Partial Revision of the Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention, 1957 (No. 107): Report VI(1), International Labour Conference, 75th Session 44–45 (ILO, Geneva 1988).
64. ILO, Policies and Development Branch: A Guide to Convention no. 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (ILO, Geneva July 1995).
65. Martínez Cobo, Study, Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, at 167 (paragraph 198) [emphasis supplied]
66. Russel L. Barsh, Indigenous Peoples and the UN Commission on Human Rights: A Case of the Immovable Object and the Irresistible Force, 18 Human Rights Quarterly 782 (1996).
67. Daes, Study, Id., at 8–9 (paragraphs 24 and 31).
68. Erica-Irene Daes, Indigenous Peoples and Their Relationship to Land: Preliminary Working Paper, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/17 (1997), at 3–6.
69. Daes, Study, U.N. Doc., at 31–32 (paragraphs 132 and 135).
70. Daes, Protection of the Heritage of Indigenous People: Preliminary Report, U.N. Doc., at 3.
71. Daes, Study, U.N. Doc., at 41 (paragraph 177).
72. Erica-Irene Daes, Protection of the Heritage of Indigenous People: Final Report, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1995/26 (1995), at 9–15.
73. Russel L. Barsh, Indigenous Peoples in the 1990s: From Object to Subject of International Law? 7 Harvard Human Rights Journal 33, 45 (1994); as technical adviser to the coordinating body for indigenous participants at UNCED, the International Indigenous Commission, the author formed a very definite impression of indigenous influence.
74. Report of the Workshop on the Ecosystem Approach, Lilongwe, Malawi, 26–28 January 1998, U.N. Doc. UNEP/CBD/COP/4/Inf.9 (1998).
75. This meeting was hosted by the United Kingdom at London, January 5–7, 1998.
76. Review of the Operations of the Convention, London Workshop: Chairman's Conclusions, U.N. Doc. UNEP/CBD/ COP/4/Inf.2 (1998).
77. Implementation of Article 8(J) and Related Provisions: Note by the Executive Secretary, U.N. Doc. UNEP/CBD/COP/4/10 (1998), at 7.
78. Report of the Workshop on Traditional Knowledge and Biological Diversity, U.N. Doc. UNEP/CBD/ TKBD/1/3 (1997).
79. Fourth Conference of the Parties, Decision IV/9, Implementation of Article 8(j) and Related Provisions (May 15, 1998).
80. Robert Weissman, A Long, Strange TRIPs: The Pharmaceutical Industry Drive to Harmonize Global Intellectual Property Rules, and the Remaining WTO Legal Alternatives Available to Third World Countries, 17 University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Economic Law 1069 (1996)
81. Intellectual Property Rights and Foreign Direct Investment, U.N. Doc. ST/CTC/SER.A/24 (New York 1993), at 23–29.
82. Final Act of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations (WTO, Geneva 1994).
83. Erica-Irene Daes, Protection of the Heritage of Indigenous People: Supplemental Report, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1996/22 (1996), at 11–12.
84. community knowledge in fields such as plant varieties; Devinder Sharma, Turning a Blind Eye to Biopiracy, Hindustani Times (August 14, 1998).
85. Trade-secret protection has long been available to indigenous people in Australia; Foster v. Mountford, 29 FLR 233 (Northern Territory Supreme Court 1976).
86. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Proposed American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, OAS Doc. OEA/Ser/L/VI.II.95 Doc.6 (1997)
87. see also 6 International Journal of Cultural Property 356–75 (1997) (with introduction by Siegfried Wiessner). Only Brazil and Argentina have expressed serious concerns about the ILO instrument that forms the model for the OAS draft.
88. There is already in force a regional Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological and Artistic Heritage of the American Nations (Convention of San Salvador, 1976), but with the flaws of the UNESCO convention: its effect is prospective, and requests for repatriation can only be made by states. UNESCO, The Protection of Movable Cultural Property, Ironically, the government of India has, at 370.
89. OAU Council of Ministers Document CM/2075 (LXVIII) Add.1.
90. Hilda Kuper and Leo Kuper, African Law: Adaptation and Development (University of California Press, Berkeley 1965).
91. See, e.g., Anthony Hooper and R. Gerard Ward, Beyond the Breathing Space, Land, Custom, and Practice in the South Pacific 250, 255 (R. Gerard Ward and Elizabeth Kingdon eds., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1995).
92. Russel L. Barsh and Chantelle Marlor, Alternative Paradigms: Law as Power, Law as Process, in Law in Society: A Canadian Reader (Nick Larsen ed., Harcourt Brace, Toronto, in press).
93. On scholars' failure to appreciate the extent and complexity of spiritual ties to landscapes, see Women, Rites and Sites: Aboriginal Women's Cultural Knowledge (Peggy Brock ed., Allen & Unwin, Sydney 1989).
94. Mabo, A Judicial Revolution: The Aboriginal Land Rights Decision and Its Impact on Australian Law (M. A. Stephenson and Suri Ratnapala eds., University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia 1993)
95. The Wik Case: Issues and Implications (Graham Hiley ed., Butterworths, Sydney 1997).
96. This is consistent with the analysis of the situation recently adopted by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Michael Dodson, Native Title Report July 1994-June 1995 47–49 (Australian Government Publishing Services, Canberra 1995).
97. See, e.g., J. Peter Brosius, Endangered Forest, Endangered People: Environmentalist Representations of Indigenous Knowledge, 25 Human Ecology 47 (1997).
98. Erica-Irene Daes, Introductory Remarks of the Special Rapporteur of the Sub-Commission, Dr. Erica-Irene Daes, typed speaking notes, at 3
99. see also Report of the Technical Meeting on the Protection of the Heritage of Indigenous People, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/15 (1997).