How does global patent policy impact the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa, and why is that relevant to the real threat of other worldwide pandemics? What is the link between intellectual property law, environmental biodiversity and climate change? Is copyright constraining access to learning materials and education, and if so, who is affected, where, how and why? Are Western-style copyrights, patents and trade-marks appropriate to protect the traditional knowledge and cultures of indigenous peoples throughout the world? How is international intellectual property policy affecting the use of the internet and mobile communication networks as mediums for cultural transformation and more participatory system of democracy? Does the increasing concentration of patents over plants' genetic resources threaten the livelihoods of subsistence farmers, or even global food security more generally? This course on Global Intellectual Property Policy tackles all of those questions, and more, through the lens of social justice: "access to knowledge," or A2K as some say. Read on for details.
Details, details, details. Here's what you need to know. Global IP Policy & Social Justice is a seminar offered at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Law. Because this is a first-year course, none of you will have taken a course in either intellectual property or international law. No problem: this is a course about policy, not legal technicalities. You're going to pick up what you need to know as we go along. Read the rest of this post to learn exactly how that will happen.
Before we can understand how intellectual property policies impact people's lives worldwide, we need to appreciate the global governance structures through which these laws and policies are formulated. So we're going to start the course with an introduction to some basic principles of international law and an overview of some of the key international organizations playing in this field. That is going to segue into an overview of the most important treaties and agreements on matters ranging from intellectual property and trade to development and human rights. Finally, we'll link recent events in the realm of global intellectual property policy making to the concepts of development, social justice and access to knowledge.
Probably the most publicly-discussed example of how IP may have adverse social impacts is the possibility of patents to restrict access to pharmaceuticals, especially medicines used to treat HIV/AIDS. Indeed, when it became apparent that patents might be making drugs more expensive and less accessible, widespread public outcry led to political action and reformation of parts of the global IP system. The success or failure of those reforms will be the focus of our lesson on patents and public health. We'll talk about social justice by critically evaluating Canada's response to global health crises -- the Canadian Access to Medicines Regime -- and the recent shipment of generic antiretroviral pills to Rwanda.
A healthy, sustainable environment is a prerequisite to any kind of human flourishing, though we don't always behave like that's the case. In this lesson, we'll look at how environmental issues like the preservation of biodiversity or the prevention of climate change are influenced by global IP policies. The links between IP and the environment may not seem immediately obvious, but they exist. We'll talk, for example, about how patents can facilitate or restrict the transfer of ecologically friendly technologies to developing countries. We'll also evaluate strategies to deal with environmental damages caused by living modified organisms (LMOs). Toward the end of the lesson, we'll begin to explore the issue of biopiracy of genetic resources, and examine access and benefit sharing mechanisms to ensure equitable treatment of the communities from which those resources come.
Agricultural biotechnologies have the potential to make people's lives better. Crops can be genetically modified to enhance yield or drought-resistance or even nutritional value. But there's enormous controversy over the economic, environmental, ethical, legal and social issues triggered by these technologies. How, if at all, should they be regulated? Our focus in this lesson will be on agbiotech patents. What rights do transgenic plant patent owners have, and what is the impact of plant patents on farmers' rights and the future of subsistence agriculture? These are important questions of social justice that we as a class will explore.
Not all knowledge worth protecting is "new." Many of the world's indigenous peoples have passed on traditional practices, folklore and other forms of knowledge from generation to generation since time immemorial. Almost everyone agrees that this knowledge deserves some form of protection, but it is proving difficult to reach consensus on the details, let alone implement a workable system worldwide. This lesson will gives us an opportunity to review some of the international initiatives seeking to achieve social justice for indigenous communities.
Achieve universal primary education. That's one of the Millennium Development Goals we've got to reach by 2015. Universal education requires, of course, universal access to learning materials. While copyright protection can be an incentive to create and disseminate learning materials like educational textbooks or online resources, it can also lead to a lock-down of such materials, especially by promoting the use of so-called technological protection measures. Currently in many countries, access to learning materials is obtained through widespread, systemic copyright infringement. Rights-holders realize this, so have put IP enforcement squarely on the international policymaking agenda, including most notably in the context of ACTA. In this lesson, we'll study the impact that enforcing copyright laws, policies and practices can have on access to learning materials. We'll crystallize our discussion by looking at the African Copyright and Access to Knowledge Project, which is promoting a just society through action-oriented research on this issue in eight different countries throughout Africa.
Cultural participation is an internationally recognized human right. But there is ambiguity in its meaning and scope. One of the most challenging dilemmas is to reconcile the rights to cultural participation and copyright protection, which can often be at odds. This part of the course explains how such conflicts arise, and what might be done to resolve them. We'll discuss documentary film making as a concrete example of this problem, and hear first-hand from some world-leading experts promoting social justice through best practices for fair use of copyright-protected cultural expression.
I am an Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Law. My expertise is in the area of technology and intellectual property law. Read more details or follow me on twitter.
