In Search of Canadian Political Culture - UBC Press

UBC Press
Global Biopiracy
Patents, Plants, and
Indigenous Knowledge
Ikechi Mgbeoji
Collective Insecurity
The Liberian Crisis, Unilateralism,
and Global Order
Ikechi Mgbeoji
The appropriation of
plants and traditional
knowledge of the uses of
plants (TKUP), also known
as biopiracy, thrives in a
culture where non-Western
forms of knowledge are
systemically marginalized
and devalued as
“folk knowledge” or
characterized as inferior.
Global Biopiracy rethinks
the role of international law, the Western-based
patent systems of the world, and international
agricultural research institutions as they affect legal
ownership and control of plants and TKUP.
The analysis is at multiple levels. The first deals with
the Eurocentric character of the patent system,
international law, and institutions. The second
involves the cultural and economic dichotomy
between the industrialized Western world and the
westernizing, developing world. The third level of
analysis considers the phenomenal loss of human
cultures and plant diversity. Exhaustively researched
and eloquently argued, Global Biopiracy sheds new
light on a contentious topic.
Contents
Foreword by Teresa Scassa
1 Introduction
2 Patents, Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge,
and Biopiracy
3 Implications of Biopiracy for Biological and Cultural
Diversity
4 The Appropriative Aspects of Biopiracy
5 Patent Regimes and Biopiracy
Conclusion
Notes; Selected Bibliography; Index
2005, 336 pages, 6 x 9”
0-7748-1152-8 / 978-0-7748-1152-1 cloth $95.00
0-7748-1153-6 / 978-0-7748-1153-8 paper $32.95
Canadian pb rights only.
A timely, well written
book that will appeal to
those who are concerned
about the impact of the
‘global war on terrorism’
on the role of international
law and social justice…
this is an important book
that draws on a wide
variety of sources and
disciplines to address an
issue that is at the forefront
of US foreign policy
today (the legitimate use
of military force internationally).
– Ronald C. Slye, Seattle University School of Law,
Law and Politics Book Review
Africa’s notorious civil wars and seemingly endless
conflicts constitute one of the most intractable
threats to global peace and security in the post-Cold
War era. This book provides both a superb analysis
of the historical dysfunction of the post-colonial
African state generally and, more specifically, a
probing critique of the crisis that resulted in the
tragic collapse of Liberia.
Contents
Introduction
1 The Myth of African Statehood
2 Collective Security and the Liberian Conflict
3 The Liberian Conflict and the International Law on Foreign
Intervention in Domestic Conflicts
4 The UN Charter and the Ratification of the ECOWAS
Action by the Security Council: Implications for Global
Security
5 Reconfiguring Collective Security in Africa
Conclusion
2003, 200 pages, 6 x 9”
1 map, 1 table
0-7748-1037-8 / 978-0-7748-1037-1 paper $32.95
LAW AND SOCIETY SERIES
LAW AND SOCIETY SERIES
www.ubcpress.ca / 1 877 864 8477 45