Caught between state-sovereign rights and property rights: regulating biodiversity

Abstract

This paper examines the interrelationships between the two regimes of sovereignty and property rights over bioresources in the light of two international agreements, namely the CBD and TRIPS. It considers the underlying problem pertaining to the regulation of access to biological resources as a problem which is related to prevailing capitalist relations rather than to the strengthening or undermining of state sovereignty. Thus, it addresses two inter-related issues: the divergence between and intersection of these two regimes, and the question of whether the institutional movement from sovereignty rights to private property rights points to the erosion of biodiversity protection due to the undermining of states' rights over biological resources in favour of corporate interests. An investigation of these issues suggests that the CBD and the TRIPS agreement are part of the same set of politico-economic relations despite their differences in normative and institutional terms, and that the sovereign rights of states and the intellectual property rights of corporations over biological resources are complementary rather than contradictory given the exploitation of the environment in the process of capital accumulation on a global scale.