Governance and Micropolitics of Traditional ... - IPRsonline.org

2.12 Summary
Ultimately it is important for national governments to make decisions on the development and
enforcement of national legislation with knowledge of the full suite of international
agreements and fora of relevance or benefit to them, 24 but also the history of their discourses
and the underlying actors that brought about their development. Thailand is fortunate to be in
a later stage of ‘development’ than other developing nations and therefore has competent
experts in most of these areas of international law. Other developing countries, including
some of Thailand’s neighbours, are somewhat less fortunate. The many different forums may
however, add to the confusion surrounding IP, traditional knowledge and biodiversity, rather
than alleviating it. At the same time the Thai Government has been under sustained pressures
to increase its IP standards, and has had to balance these with trade interests, the interests of
its society and environment. Furthermore Thai department officials have noted that some
national actions will be largely pointless, such as requiring disclosure of origin in Thai laws,
if there are is not a similar concerted effort by international bodies (Dansupatra, Thoosapone.
Pers. Comm. 20005). As well as dealing with such international obligations, the Thai
government has had to deal with the internal administration of such issues which have
regularly caused controversy and the concerns of farmers, healers, local and tribal
communities. It should be recognised that often local or national laws, projects and initiatives
can be important in the establishment of norms including international laws. The laws,
initiatives and micropolitics of Thailand are discussed in the following two sections.
24 Other international organisations that are working on TK issues include the World Health Organisation which
has done some investigation on the benefits of traditional medicines to local societies and economies; the United
Nations Conference to Combat of Desertification which seeks to utilise TK to alleviate desertification; the Food
and Agriculture Organisation Sustainable Development Department as well as the Commission on Genetic
Resources for Food and Agriculture; the UN Conference on Trade and Development and various UNEP and
UNDP projects either directly or indirectly.
31