Traditional medicinal knowledge, recognition and regulation

Nicole Aylwin

doi:10.32920/ryerson.14648451.v1

Abstract

As a number of global legal and political institutions grapple with ways to recognize and integrate TMK into their institutional frameworks, how traditional practices are 'recognized', and what work 'recognition's being asked to do become key questions. Three international frameworks that play a key role in recognizing TMK in the international arena are the Convention on Biological Diversity, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Health Organization. By examining the way in which these three bodies have recognized and integrated TMK into their respective regimes, while and drawing on the scholarship of anthropologists, critical legal scholars, intellectual property experts and legal and policy literature, I will argue that the recognition of TMK in the international legal and political arena has led to the creation of complex legal and political spaces where recognizing traditional medicinal knowledge has fragmented it, siphoning off the social, cultural and spiritual aspects of it that remain incompatible with the current neoliberal paradigms. Simultaneously, recognition and integration have been used to co-opt traditional knowledge in order to extend governance regimes that integrate TMK and its holders without challenging the basic, outdated and highly unequal and unethical power relations on discourses of recognition are based.

Highlights

The failure of many struggling nations to provide adequate healthcare for their populations has become a global concern, the increasing recognition of the legitimacy and scientific utility of indigenous knowledge has prompted transnational pharmaceutical conglomerates to engage with TMK and its holders, and the fear of a global biodiversity crisis has catapulted TMK into global debates ranging from the importance of traditional medicinal knowledge to environmental sustainability projects, to debates over intellectual property rights
By examining the way in which these three bodies have recognized and integrated TMK into their respective regimes, while and drawing on the scholarship of anthropologists, critical legal scholars, intellectual property experts and legal and policy literature, I will argue that the recognition ofTMK in the international legal and political arena has led to the creation of complex legal and political spaces where recognizing traditional medicinal knowledge has fragmented it, siphoning off the social, cultural and spiritual aspects of it that remain incompatible with the current neoliberal paradigms
Each certainly is related to the other given that the overall recognition ofIK has not been limited to one institutional body but continually crosses paths in a number of ways; intellectual property is used to protect the important knowledge about bioresources and their informational content that are the concern of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), biodiversity is imperative to providing traditional healthcare to the poor which interests the World Health Organization (WHO) etc

Summary

Introduction

International negotiations over the rights to and the protection of traditional medicinal knowledge must always take place along side issues of the legal, political and cultural recognition of indigenous peoples and their knowledge.

Results

Conclusion