Mohammed and the Mountain: The Sui Generis Debate on Traditional Knowledge
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W. Bradnee Chambers
Abstract
Introduction
Should Mohammed go to the mountain or should the mountain come to Mohammed? For indigenous groups around the world who have watched their knowledge and way of life erode from outside forces, they want the mountain to come to them for a change and they are demanding that the current global intellectual property rules be adjusted to protect their traditional knowledge instead of them trying to fit into a system that was never designed with their needs in mind.
Most experts agree that traditional knowledge— the local know-how to use plants and animals for therapeutic, medicinal or artisan purposes—cannot be easily protected under current international law. But for the world’s poorest, traditional knowledge is the foundation of many services that they could not otherwise afford. For example, medical treatment based on traditional knowledge meets about 80% of their daily healthcare needs.
Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG
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- Heavy Burden: Promoting Public Policy through the Use of Material Transfer Agreements for Plant Genetic Resources
- Mohammed and the Mountain: The Sui Generis Debate on Traditional Knowledge
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Articles in the same Issue
- Editorial
- The Oviedo Convention: A European Legal Framework at the Intersection of Human Rights and Health Law
- Heavy Burden: Promoting Public Policy through the Use of Material Transfer Agreements for Plant Genetic Resources
- Mohammed and the Mountain: The Sui Generis Debate on Traditional Knowledge
- Queensland’s Biodiscovery Act 2004
- The new EU Regulatory Framework for GM Food (Part II)
- Portugues Ethical Debates on Euthanasia
- Euthanasia, a Matrix of Cure or Exacerbation – A Legal Perspective of Current Bioethics Issue in China
- Gene – Genome – Systems Biology Engineering Know-How in Greater Demand than Ever
