Indigenizing Intellectual Property Law: Customary Law, Legal Pluralism, and the Protection of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, Identity, and Resources

Abstract

When this article promotes its theme of indigenizing intellectual property law, it means to apply legal pluralism to justify employment of Indigenous law as a primary source of law to begin the development of a sui generis legal system to bring to the fore essential protections for Indigenous knowledge, tangible and intangible cultural materials and artifacts, secret and sacred information and know-how, cultural expressions, and the biogenetic resources justly owned and possessed by Indigenous Peoples. By urging adoption of the indigenizing paradigm, this article implies that the current and most widely used and recognized laws governing intellectual property are, in their current form, incapable and at times inconsistent with protecting the rights and interests of Indigenous Peoples in their resources and intangible assets that have, through time, putatively derived from their origins, their interactions with their environment, their adaptations to the surrounding world, and their cosmology and creation stories.