Whose Knowledge Is It

Goal: After this lesson you can explain how international law has tried to protect traditional knowledge. Subject: Social Studies | Run time: about 7 minutes

Quick recall

Last time we traced how Coca-Cola got its name. Two quick questions. One: what does biopiracy mean? Commercializing traditional knowledge without consent, so the returns flow past the originating community (Pendergrast, 2013). Two: what product, created in 1886, took its name and its kick from the kola nut? Coca-Cola (Pendergrast, 2013).

Why this matters

If biopiracy is the problem, the question that follows is plain. Whose knowledge is it, and who gets to decide how it is used? For most of history, the people who held traditional knowledge had no law on their side. Over the past two decades, that has started to change.

The idea

The first big step came in 2007, when the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (United Nations, 2007). The Declaration recognizes, in international terms, that Indigenous peoples have rights to their traditional knowledge (United Nations, 2007). It set a standard the world could point to, even if it did not yet force anyone to follow it. Three years later, in 2010, came the Nagoya Protocol, a benefit-sharing framework. The idea is straightforward: if a company or a researcher uses a community's genetic resources or traditional knowledge, the benefits should be shared back with that community rather than kept entirely by the outside party. Then, in 2024, the World Intellectual Property Organization adopted a treaty on intellectual property, genetic resources, and associated traditional knowledge (World Intellectual Property Organization, 2024). This was the first binding international anti-biopiracy agreement, signed by 30 signatories (World Intellectual Property Organization, 2024). "Binding" is the key word. Earlier steps set standards and frameworks; this one created obligations with the force of a treaty behind them. Underneath all of these legal tools sit two ideas that communities themselves use as the real standard. The first is Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, often shortened to FPIC. It means a community must be free to accept or refuse, informed before any decision is made, told the full scope and consequences, and able to give or withhold consent as a community. The second is knowledge sovereignty, a community's right to control how its own traditional knowledge is used and shared. Laws can support these ideas, but the ideas come first, and they belong to the communities.

Picture it

Picture a long table. On one side sit the documents: the 2007 UN Declaration, the 2010 Nagoya Protocol, the 2024 WIPO Treaty with its 30 signatures. On the other side sits a community elder, the holder of knowledge that took generations to build. For most of history that side of the table was empty of legal power. Now there are papers on the table, and for the first time the elder's "yes" or "no" has weight the wider world has agreed to respect.

Remember this

The fact to carry out: the 2007 UN Declaration recognized rights to traditional knowledge, the 2010 Nagoya Protocol set up benefit-sharing, and the 2024 WIPO Treaty became the first binding anti-biopiracy agreement with 30 signatories, all resting on Free, Prior, and Informed Consent and knowledge sovereignty (United Nations, 2007; World Intellectual Property Organization, 2024).

Quick check

Quick check. What made the 2024 WIPO Treaty different from the earlier steps? It was the first binding international anti-biopiracy agreement, signed by 30 signatories (World Intellectual Property Organization, 2024).

Key Takeaways

The 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognized rights to traditional knowledge in international terms (United Nations, 2007).
The 2010 Nagoya Protocol created a benefit-sharing framework for the use of genetic resources and traditional knowledge.
The 2024 WIPO Treaty was the first binding international anti-biopiracy agreement, with 30 signatories (World Intellectual Property Organization, 2024).
Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) and knowledge sovereignty are the standards communities use to control how their knowledge is used and shared.

Sources

United Nations. (2007). United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. UN General Assembly.
World Intellectual Property Organization. (2024). WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge. WIPO Diplomatic Conference, Geneva.