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Upcoming People, Plants and the Law lectures

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We are glad to advise you of the upcoming People, Plants and the Law online lectures for 2024. Please note these dates in your calendar, invitations for individual events will be sent closer to the event. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact Berris Charnley .

We hope that you will be able to join us.

Kelly Bannister (University of Victoria) People-Plant Interrelationships and the Law – but whose law? Expanding the conversation through Ethnobiology and Biocultural Ethics* “Variety is the spice of life” is a well known phrase that can be traced back to a poem called The Task *published in 1785 by William Cowper. Little did Cowper know that he was onto something bigger than just pleasure! A couple of centuries later, scientists tell us that variety – in the form of biological diversity or ‘the variety of life on earth in all its forms and interactions’ – is essential for the very continuance of humankind. We also know from interdisciplinary fields such as ethnobiology that cultural diversity and linguistic diversity (specifically Indigenous cultures and languages) are inextricably linked with the world’s biological diversity – and that all are facing imminent risk amid the complex social-and ecological crises of our time.

Recognizing the vital role that diversity has in our future on earth necessarily invites complexities into conversations about entanglements of “people, plants and the law.” For example, how might the conversation diversify by adding an “s” to “law” and to “people,” intentionally considering Indigenous laws and laws of Nature alongside colonial law? And what of the entanglements between law and ethics, given in some legal traditions there is no distinction? The conversation might shift, in ways that are messy, difficult, inconvenient – but perhaps also interesting and productive?

This presentation offers a conversation-widening perspective on plants, peoples and laws based in biocultural diversity research and ethics policy development in Canada, drawing from recent spicy decades in ethnobiology and related fields seeking to collaborate across Western and Indigenous systems of knowledge, laws and ethics.

Date: Tuesday 8 October 2024 Time: 9am-10am AEST / 10am-11am AEDT / Time in your location

Venue: Zoom

Register here

*Rachel Wynberg (University of Cape Town) and Sarah Laird (University of Kent) *Rethinking biodiversity-based economies for justice and conservation

Rachel Wynberg is a Professor in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science at the University of Cape Town in South Africa where she holds a government-funded Research Chair focused on Environmental and Social Dimensions of the Bio-economy. With a background in both the natural and social sciences, she has a strong interest in inter- and trans disciplinarity and policy engagement across the humanities, arts and sciences. Her research spans topics relating to just, ethical and biodiverse bio-economies; seeds, farmers’ rights and agrobiodiversity; knowledge politics; agroecology and food sovereignty; the governance of wild species; and emerging technologies and equity in science.

Dr. Sarah A. Laird is a forester and ethnobiologist by training. Her interests cover a range of inter-related issues, including forest-based traditional knowledge and livelihoods, biodiversity policy, emerging technologies, and the ethical and conservation dimensions of the commercial use of biodiversity. Since the 1990s, Sarah has collaborated with communities around Mt Cameroon on ethnobiological research and knowledge exchange programs to support and conserve threatened traditional management practices and cultural forests. Her current policy work includes that on the ethical and conservation implications of transformative scientific and technological advances, particularly within the framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Rachel Wynberg and Sarah Laird presently co-direct a process of "rethinking" the relationship between conservation and equity, and the biodiversity-based economy, including access and benefit-sharing. https://rethinking-abs.org/

Date: Tuesday 12 November 2024 Time: 5:00pm-6:00pm AEST / 6:00pm-7:00pm AEDT / Time in your location

Venue: Zoom

Register here

Uma Suthersanen (Queen Mary University of London) WIPO Treaty on TKGR 2024: Constructing Guidelines for Disclosure and ABS**

In May 2024, a new international treaty was adopted which introduced a new, and hitherto controversial, norm namely the international obligation for applicants to disclose the source or origin of genetic resources (GR) and/or the associated traditional knowledge (TK) in patent applications (Article 3). In its aims, this disclosure mechanism promotes: (i) “the efficacy, transparency and quality of the patent system”, while not unduly burdening patent offices, in addition to the requisite examination of novelty/inventive step that all patent offices must conduct under the global norms (TRIPs Agreement); (ii) preventing the grant of patents erroneously; and (iii) national compliance of obligations under international and national access and benefit sharing (ABS) regulations to ensure that users of TKGRs comply with the requirements for access to GRs, including prior informed consent and benefit sharing under mutually agreed terms.

However, the Treaty stresses that the sole fact of a failure to disclose will not allow Contracting Parties to “revoke, invalidate, or render enforceable” patent rights. (Article 5(3)). Post grant sanctions are allowed in cases of “fraudulent intent”. This ambivalent attitude towards sanctions permits contracting parties considerable flexibility in the implementation of the disclosure mechanism.

My presentation will focus on this ambivalence, especially in light of the following three questions. First, what is the trigger for the disclosure mechanism to apply? Specifically, what does “based on” TKGR mean in relation to a complex and multiple patent applications? Second, does the disclosure mechanism include digital sequence information (DSI)? (Articles 8 and 9). Finally, what is the point of the international disclosure mechanism without revocation or invalidity procedures/results? Specifically, how do we interpret the opaque references to “fraudulent intent” in disclosure? In looking at these questions, one should be cognisant of the readiness of national patent systems to incorporate such disclosure mechanisms (including the availability of accessible databases, monitoring, opposition proceedings, etc), the coherence of disclosure/sanctions mechanisms within this treaty, as well as the CBD/Nagoya protocol, the WIPO Patent Law Treaty (art. 10, PLT), and the lessons learnt from other patent systems (e.g. US Bayh-Dohl’s failure on disclosure requirements).

Date: Tuesday 10 December Time: 6:00pm-7:00pm AEST / 7:00pm-8:00pm AEDT / Time in your location

Venue: Zoom

Register here

About the People, Plants and the Law Online Lecture Series

The People, Plants, and the Law online lecture series explores the legal and lively entanglements of human and botanical worlds.

Today people engage with and relate to plants in diverse and sometimes divergent ways. Seeds—and the plants that they produce—may be receptacles of memory, sacred forms of sustenance, or sites of resistance in struggles over food sovereignty. Simultaneously, they may be repositories of gene sequences, Indigenous knowledge, bulk commodities, or key components of economic development projects and food security programs.

This lecture series explores the special role of the law in shaping these different engagements, whether in farmers’ fields, scientific laboratories, international markets, or elsewhere.

This lecture series is a partnership between The University of Queensland, The ARC Laureate Project Harnessing Intellectual Property to Build Food Security, The ARC Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature & Agriculture, and The ARC Uniquely Australian Foods Training Centre.

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www.plantsuccess.org/people-plants-and-the-law/

The organisers of the People Plants and the Law lecture series acknowledge the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and their continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past, present and emerging.

You received this email because you have attended a People Plants and the Law lecture in the past, or because a member of our research group listed you as potentially interested in these lectures. To unsubscribe from this mailing list, please use the link below.

This email was sent by Plant Success, ARC CoE for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia to b.charnley@uq.edu.au

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Researcher | CONSCICOM | University of Oxford | St Anne's College | berrischarnley.com | ipbio.org | conscicom.org

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