Common Heritage of Mankind

Abstract

If the principle of national sovereignty arises from the element of unilateral development in the Third World, with developing countries accepting the capitalist world economy and competing against one another within it, the principle of common heritage arises from the element of solidarity and multilateralism that exists in Third World politics. This chapter on common heritage is divided into three sections. In the first section, we outline our conception of common heritage. This conception is taken primarily from that expounded in the 1960s by the Maltese Ambassador to the UN, Arvid Pardo, with regard to the mineral wealth of the seabed. We elaborate and strengthen this conception by co-opting the ‘difference principle’ of John Rawls. In the second section, we show that, contrary to widespread belief, the common heritage ethic still retains an influence in the politics of genetic resource control. In the third section, we demonstrate that the common heritage ethic is compatible with both the community IPR principle and the national sovereignty principle.KeywordsGenetic ResourceChoice TheoryDifference PrinciplePlant Genetic ResourceInternational ArenaThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.