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welcome women holding secure rights to property.This may well be a time-consuming process ofnorms evolving. It is an area in which much additionalresearch is needed.Joint Titling Efforts and Common Property. Governmentsshould register household propertyjointly in the name of both husband and wife. Byvirtue of marriage or sustained free union (domesticpartnership) real and moveable propertyheld or bought by the male partner should automaticallybe considered the co-property of thewoman. Women usually do not have the means tocontribute 50 percent to the purchase of propertyin marriage.Inheritance. The primary way the poor acquireland is through the family and by inheritance. 112Many formal or informal legal systems favour menin distributions made by inheritance. 113 In somecases, inheritance and succession laws providewidows with only temporary rights to use spousalproperty after their husbands die. These rulessubject women to the potential of property grabbing.Many countries have amended constitutionsor implemented legislation to guarantee the rightsof women to inherit property on an equitable basiswith men. However, in some countries may overridethese provisions by custom or family law,while a number still maintain discriminatory provisionsin their legal codes. 114 Thus, for women, theexistence of inheritance rules that call for maleand female heirs to receive equal consideration intestamentary distributions are an important stepon the path towards empowerment. There is someevidence that changing formal inheritance lawsmay have the unintended consequence of promptingmen to specifically disinherit female heirs toavoid passing property to them. 115Education and Information. Women may be unawareof their legally guaranteed property rights.This on-the-ground reality suggests that there is acontinued need to educate women and girls as totheir legal rights to own, use and transfer propertyand to communicate to society broadly the natureof these rights.Intellectual Property Rights and the Rightsof Indigenous Peoples: The Task AheadIn most cases intellectual property is only indirectlylinked to the economic activities of thepoor. However, in the case of indigenous peoplethe issue of intellectual property is often relatedto forms of dispossession and property misuse.Discussions have focused on a wide range ofissues, including moves to strengthen protectionof traditional cultural expressions (TCEs),traditional knowledge (TK) and genetic resources(GR) against misappropriation and misuse. 116 Inanalogy to this report’s focus on indigenous formsof tenure, rather than indigenous people as such,this section of the report pays attention to theseforms of intellectual property rights rather than tothe identification of their bearers. The UN HumanRights Council (Declaration on the Rights of IndigenousPeoples), the Convention on BiologicalDiversity 117 , the WTO TRIPS Council, UNCTAD,UNESCO, the FAO and WIPO have paid increasedattention to the protection of TCEs, TK, and GR.Some view intellectual property rights as a usefulinstrument for the conservation of TK, GRand TCEs and as a tool for implementing a benefit-sharing.Others are more critical and fear atrivialisation of traditional cultures and possiblemisappropriation. Others still point to a fundamentalconflict between the very notion of intellectualproperty and the cultural values and moralperception of many indigenous populations.While indigenous notions of collective ownershipand trans-generational custodianship might becompatible with the overall idea of (intellectual)92