Poverty and Indo–Norwegian Relations

Amitabh Behar, ‘The Role of Civil Society Coalitions in the Fight Against Poverty’ This presentation discusses how civil society coalitions and networks in India work to fight poverty and discrimination, and to demand accountability of governance. It also discusses the role of global civil society coalitions and international actors in adding value to these national campaigns. Rajshree Chandra, ‘Traditional Resource Rights — ‘There and Yet Not There’ — Pushing It Forward Through ‘Disclosures” Till recently, prior to the biotechnological boom, genetic resources and their knowledge have been assumed to be part of the global commons and common heritage. This has led to piracy of genetic resources or biopiracy. The central criticism in the biopiracy literature is that the big corporations are freely appropriating bio-diversity and ethnobotanical resources and traditional knowledge bases of the people generally by means of patents, without compensation to the indigenous groups who originally developed such knowledge and sustained the resource. Critics argue that if patent, copyright and trademark infringements are acts of intellectual piracy, then so is the failure to recognize and compensate the intellectual contributions of traditional peoples and communities who are the primary innovators. This has become the background for varying claims most of which rhetorically are claiming space for traditional resource rights within the TRIPS framework. The only specific demand, however, has been the insertion of a “disclosure” clause within the TRIPS framework which becomes the premise on which benefits and a share in profits can be claimed by the indigenous, farming communities. Proposals for a disclosure requirement in patent applications are viewed as one mechanism of ensuring legal and transparent access to genetic resources and a fair and equitable benefit sharing process. This amendment and the disclosure clause is being strongly supported by developing countries like India, Pakistan, Thailand, Peru and the African Group. Their proposed amendment recognizes the sovereign rights of states over their natural resources, and includes forfeiture of patent rights as a penalty for noncompliance. However, many industrialized countries like the USA and Japan question the need for such amendment. In contrast, the EU, Norway and Switzerland are supportive of establishing disclosure of origin requirements at the international level, but not necessarily in the framework of TRIPS. This paper seeks to advance a case for the insertion of the disclosure clause on which the entire claim of indigenous communities rests and foresees a role that the developing countries can play in future negotiations.