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From Poverty to Power Green, Oxfam 2008 - weman

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5 THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM TRADINGA second concern over the potential negative impacts of IP rulesis so-called ‘bio-piracy’ – the theft and patenting of traditionalknowledge from developing countries. One of the most no<strong>to</strong>riousexamples occurred in 1995, when two researchers from the Universityof Mississippi Medical Center were granted a US patent for usingturmeric <strong>to</strong> heal wounds, an art that has been practised in India forthousands of years. To get the patent repealed, the claim had <strong>to</strong> bebacked by written evidence – an ancient Sanskrit text. 72Similar patent disputes have broken out over attempts by US firms<strong>to</strong> patent basmati rice (a tasty variety perfected over generationsby Indian farmers), ayahuasca (an Amazon rainforest plant sacred<strong>to</strong> Colombia’s indigenous peoples), the neem tree (an Indian planttraditionally used <strong>to</strong> produce medicines and pesticides), and extractsof black pepper. 73 In 2005, the Peruvian government accused Japanesescientists of trying <strong>to</strong> patent the extract of camu-camu, a pale orangefruit found in the Amazon that has the highest concentration ofvitamin C of any known plant, 60 times greater than lemon juice. 74Besides excluding communities from the profits of products basedon the traditional knowledge that they have developed, bio-piracy isemblematic of a wider problem: the transfer of knowledge from thepublic <strong>to</strong> the private domain, which puts profit before innovation orhuman welfare.There is no shortage of ideas as <strong>to</strong> how <strong>to</strong> res<strong>to</strong>re IP rules <strong>to</strong> theirproper place in the global system. These include:• Within TRIPS, recognise that different levels of developmentrequire different kinds of IP rules, including much easierrecourse <strong>to</strong> safeguards and flexibilities such as compulsorylicensing and parallel imports of life-saving drugs and technologies,and much greater commitment <strong>to</strong> technology transfer.• More radically, remove IP from the WTO al<strong>to</strong>gether, scrappingTRIPS, and return the issue <strong>to</strong> a reformed version of the UN’sWorld Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). WIPOhas been criticised for ‘sending missionaries <strong>to</strong> convert theuncivilized economies of the South’ 75 <strong>to</strong> the merits of strictIP rules, but since 2004 a group of developing countriesled by Argentina and Brazil have successfully introduced adevelopment agenda for WIPO.331

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