Legal Protection for China’s Traditional Religious Knowledge

Wenqi Liu

doi:10.3390/rel7090116

Abstract

Traditional religious knowledge widely incorporates traditional religious expressions and other forms of traditional knowledge, such as ecological knowledge, medicinal knowledge, elements of languages, and so on. Traditional religious knowledge is a subset of cultural heritage, of which the inheritance and spread have attracted considerable attention from the global society. A series of international conventions have been reached to provide an international forum to negotiate the issues concerning the safeguard of traditional cultural knowledge. China has joined several important international conventions. Nowadays, the domestic laws that can be applied in safeguarding traditional religious knowledge include the intellectual property laws, the Law on Intangible Cultural Heritage, and other sui generis rules. Despite considerable achievements, the shortcomings of the existing rules make them insufficient to protect the interests and rights of traditional religious knowledge and prevent its misappropriation. Therefore, China should make further efforts to solve these challenges to optimize the environment for preserving and spreading traditional religious knowledge.

Highlights

China has been a multi-religion country for 2000 years
In September 2000, the WIPO established the Intergovernmental Committee on IP and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore, which offered a forum for governments to discuss IP-related matters
The administrative liability and criminal liability will be imposed upon the overseas organizations or individuals who illegally conduct investigations of intangible cultural heritage within China’s territory [24]. Under this law, the civil liability is only limited to the circumstance where someone illegally damages the physical objects and premises that are a constituent part of intangible cultural heritage [25]

Summary

Introduction

China has been a multi-religion country for 2000 years. In China’s long history, religions and religious beliefs have deeply influenced Chinese politics, culture, and public psychology. Mazuism and Yellow Emperor worship have been widely accepted by Chinese people, and some forms of local worship, such as Land Secretary (土地爷), are very popular in rural China [2] Both the non-traditional and traditional religions have developed their native ethics, philosophy, background, and ritual, into which local fundamentals are integrated. Chinese Daoism, China’s oldest traditional religion, has developed its unique intangible culture since the time of ancient China, including philosophy, ethics, medicine and remedies, ecological theories, healthy food recipes, and martial arts. Plenty of prescriptions and medical academic works were developed by Daoists, which are still widely used to date [7] In this regard, traditional religious knowledge is considerably valuable. Elements of languages: religious symbols, religious names, and relevant graphical indications

Characteristics of Traditional Knowledge

International Negotiations and Treaties

Different Routes to Traditional Knowledge Protection

Conclusions