“Fair and equitable benefit-sharing” is one of the objectives of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. In essence, benefit-sharing holds that countries, farmers, and indigenous communities that grant access to their plant genetic resources and/or traditional knowledge should share in the benefits that users derive from these resources. But what exactly is understood by “fair” and “equitable” in this context? Neither term is defined in the international treaties. (...) A complicating factor, furthermore, is that different motivations and perspectives exist with respect to the notion of benefit-sharing itself. This paper looks at six different approaches to benefit-sharing that can be extracted from the current debates on “Access and Benefit-Sharing.” These approaches form the basis of a philosophical reflection in which the different connotations of “fair and equitable” are considered, by analyzing the main principles of justice involved. Finally, the various principles are brought together in order to draw some conclusions as to how a fair and equitable benefit-sharing mechanism might best be realized. This results in several recommendations for policymakers. (shrink)

A renowned economist's classic book on capitalism in the developing world, showing how property rights are the key to overcoming poverty "The hour of capitalism's greatest triumph," writes Hernando de Soto, "is, in the eyes of four-fifths of humanity, its hour of crisis." In The Mystery of Capital, the world-famous Peruvian economist takes up one of the most pressing questions the world faces today: Why do some countries succeed at capitalism while others fail? In strong opposition to the popular view (...) that success is determined by cultural differences, de Soto finds that it actually has everything to do with the legal structure of property and property rights. Every developed nation in the world at one time went through the transformation from predominantly extralegal property arrangements, such as squatting on large estates, to a formal, unified legal property system. In the West we've forgotten that creating this system is what allowed people everywhere to leverage property into wealth. This persuasive book revolutionized our understanding of capital and points the way to a major transformation of the world economy. (shrink)

The value of biodiversity is usually confused with the value of biological resources, both actual and potential. A sharp distinction between biological resources and biodiversity offers a clearer insight into the value of biodiversity itself and therefore the need to preserve it. Biodiversity can be defined abstractly as the differences among biological entities. Using this definition, biodiversity can be seen more appropriately as: (a) a necessary precondition for the long term maintenance of biological resources, and therefore, (b) an essential environmental (...) condition. Three values of biodiversity are identified and arranged in a hierarchy: (1) the self-augmenting phenomenon of biodiversity maintains (2) the conditions necessary for the adaptive evolution of species and higher taxa, which in turn is necessary for providing humans with (3) a range of biological resources in the long term. Two broad policy implications emerge: increments of biodiversity should not be traded off against biological resources as if they were the same, and the conservation of biodiversity should be a constraint on the public interest, not a goal in service of the public interest. (shrink)

Intellectual property typically involves claims of ownership of types, rather than particulars. In this article I argue that this difference in ontology makes an important moral difference. In particular I argue that there cannot be an intrinsic moral right to own intellectual property. I begin by establishing a necessary condition for the justification of intrinsic moral rights claims, which I call the Rights Justification Principle. Briefly, this holds that if we want to claim that there is an intrinsic moral right (...) to φ, we must be able to show that (a) violating this right would typically result in either a wrongful harm or other significant wrong to the holder of the right, and (b) the wrongful harm or other wrong in question is independent of the existence of the intrinsic right we are trying to justify. I then argue that merely creating a new instance of a type is not the kind of action which can wrongfully harm the creator of that type. Insofar as there do seem to be wrongs involved in copying a published poem or computer program, these wrongs presuppose the existence of an intrinsic right to own intellectual property, and so cannot be used to justify it. I conclude that there cannot be an intrinsic right to own intellectual property. (shrink)

El presente artículo indaga en los alcances teóricos y el impacto de las diversas concepciones del fenómeno del desarrollo. Atiende, en primer lugar, a la reflexión acerca de los fines y los medios del desarrollo que ha sido denominada “Ética del Desarrollo”. Estima que el examen de esta visión es necesario establecerlo en concomitancia con la reflexión sobre la democracia participativa . El trabajo teórico que se ha venido haciendo con miras a la ampliación de la noción tradicional y restringida (...) de “ciudadanía” política, le otorga un importante elemento de juicio para el examen de la democracia. Le permite entender de mejor manera el modo como se podría pensar en una confluencia de desarrollo y democracia participativa , mediando un ejercicio activo de la ciudadanía, entendida en un sentido ampliado, una de cuyas expresiones se encontraría en el concepto de “Ciudadanía biológica”, que examina desde un enfoque de biopolítica afirmativa. (shrink)

El artículo busca profundizar en el examen de la noción de “ciudadanía” a partir del contexto teórico desplegado por la problemática ecológica, teniendo en cuenta las determinaciones y desafíos que impone a la figura de la ciudadanía la supuesta existencia de un fenómeno de devastación antropogénica como el que se sostiene que afecta al planeta en nuestros días. Se intenta esbozar algunas consideraciones que permitan el avance de una reflexión particular sobre “ciudadanía ambiental”, asumiendo que la literatura filosófico-política contemporánea presenta (...) variados alcances teóricos que podrían ser atendidos en este sentido, puesto que ellos también buscan ampliar el concepto canónico de ciudadanía presentado inicialmente por Marshall. (shrink)

This paper addresses problems related to transferring market concepts to non-market domains. More specifically it is about fallacies following from the use of the commodity concept in environmental valuation studies. First of all, the standard practice tends to misconstrue the ethical aspects related to environmental choices by forcing them into becoming ordinary trade-off problems. Second, the commodity perspective ignores important technical interdependencies within the environment and the relational character of environmental goods. These are all properties that have made many such (...) goods escape the commoditisation pressure of markets in the first place. Further, it is shown that these interdependencies are the source of some of the ethical dilemmas observed. Finally, inherent characteristics of the environment tend to make the concept of the margin, so indispensable to economic calculus, either difficult or irrelevant to define. The commodity 'fiction' twists the perception of the environment from systems preservation to items use or transformation. This is a problem of increased importance as we approach potential systems perturbations. (shrink)

Agroecology has been criticized for being more labor-intensive than other more industrialized forms of agriculture. We challenge the assertion that labor input in agriculture has to be generally minimized and argue that besides quantity of work one should also consider the quality of work involved in farming. Early assessments on work quality condemned the deskilling of the rural workforce, whereas later criticisms have concentrated around issues related to fair trade and food sovereignty. We bring into the discussion the concept of (...) contributive justice to welcome the added labor-intensity of agroecological farming. Contributive justice demands a work environment where people are stimulated to develop skills and learn to be productive. It also suggests a fairer distribution of meaningful work and tedious tasks. Building on the notion of contributive justice we explore which capabilities and types of social relationships are sustainably promoted and reinforced by agroecological farming practices. We argue that agroecological principles encourage a reconceptualization of farm work. Farmers are continuously stimulated to develop skills and acquire valuable experiential knowledge on local ecosystems and agricultural techniques. Further, generalized ecological studies recognize the significance of the farmer’s observations on natural resources management. This contributes to the development of a number of capabilities and leads to more bargaining power, facilitating self-determination. Hereby farm work is made more attractive to a younger generation, which is an essential factor for safeguarding the continuity of family farms. (shrink)

Until now, the debates around genetically modified seeds in agriculture have converged towards two main issues. The first is about hazards that this new technology brings about, and the second is about the ownership of seeds and the distribution of their economic benefits. In this paper, I explore an underdeveloped topic by linking these two issues: how ownership shapes the distribution of moral responsibility for the potential hazards of genetically modified seeds. Indeed, while ownership is debated in terms of economic (...) rights and hazards in terms of “good” or “bad” science, no one has looked at whether or not we could and should ascribe and distribute moral responsibility for hazards based on ownership of genetically modified seeds. I argue that we should. Using the notion of ownership as a bundle of rights, I argue that from a moral perspective, the genetically modified seed has several owners at the same time. Although different owners may not have the same economic rights over the seed, they all have a moral responsibility, possibly to varying degrees, for the potential hazards brought about by the seed. Secondly, I argue that, as long as a seed carries the character trait that was intentionally modified, then it calls for moral responsibility. All in all, I formulate a way for linking issues of ownership and hazards of genetically modified seeds in agriculture through the concept of moral responsibility. (shrink)

Efforts to protect endangered species by regulating the use of privately owned lands are routinely resisted by appeal to the private property rights of landowners. Recently, the 'wise-use' movement has emerged as a primary representative of these landowners' claims. In addressing the issues raised by the wise-use movement and others like them, legal scholars and philosophers have typically examined the scope of private property rights and the extent to which these rights should influence public policy decisions when weighed against other (...) moral considerations. Whether from an anthropocentric standpoint or from a perspective of moral extensionism, the key question seems to be the extent to which prima facie property rights are overridden by other moral interests, not whether such rights claims can reasonably be appealed to at all in public discussions of environmental justice. I argue, however, that a morally extensionist perspective not only introduces more potential defeaters of prima facie property rights, but actually strips appeals to private property rights of their moral significance. Hence, I argue on Rawlsian grounds that appealing to private property rights in the way that the wise-use movement does is unreasonable in a pluralistic society. In so doing, I show that a Rawlsian perspective may be more congenial to the interests of moral extensionists than is typically thought. (shrink)

This essay identifies two legal lineages underlying the common heritage concept, and applies each to the human genome. The essay notes some advantages and disadvantages of each approach, and argues that patenting of human genes would be allowable under either approach.

In the opening years of the 21st century, it became fashionable to describe the human genome as belonging to the common heritage of humanity. The United Nations, in its Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights, now identifies the human genome as part of the common heritage, as does the international Human Genome Organization and the Council of Europe. The common heritage concept has played a prominent role in arguments against patenting the human genome or portions thereof. This (...) essay considers whether the common heritage designation will advance the political and legal goals of its proponents. (shrink)

Science is now studying biodiversity on a massive scale. These studies are occurring not just at the scale of larger plants and animals, but also at the scale of minute entities such as bacteria and viruses. This expansion has led to the development of a specific sub-field of “microbial diversity”. In this paper, I investigate how microbial diversity faces two of the classical issues encountered by the concept of “ biodiversity ”: the issues of defining the units of biodiversity and (...) of choosing a mathematical measure of diversity. I also show that the extension of the scope of biodiversity to microbial entities such as viruses and many other not-clearly-alive entities raises yet another foundational issue: that of defining a “lower-limit” of biodiversity. (shrink)

This article deals with the biotechnology revolution in agriculture and analyzes it in terms of Bernard Stiegler’s theory of techno-evolution and his thesis that technologies have an intrinsically pharmacological nature, meaning that they can be both supportive and destructive for sociotechnical practices based on them. Technological innovations always first disrupt existing sociotechnical practices, but are subsequently always appropriated by the social system to be turned into a new technical system upon which new sociotechnical practices are based. As constituted and conditioned (...) by a technical system, human cultures are necessarily systems of care. Humans take care of themselves and the world through technologies. Agriculture is a very old system of care, stable for more than 10,000 years, but at the moment it is experiencing a profound rupture thanks to the invention of genetic engineering technologies, that promise to revolutionize it. However, their current deployment under capitalist conditions everywhere leads to processes of proletarianization, due to the fact that they enable the expropriation of farmers of the means of production, depriving them of the possibility of appropriating these new technologies and frustrating the invention of a new agricultural system of care. This has lead to a widespread rejection of the new technologies, which is a grave error though, as these technologies can become the basis of a new system of care. But only under the condition that they are wrought from corporate control and redeployed instead to initiate a process of deproletarianization. It is argued that current initiatives in open source and commons-based biotech are probably the most promising harbingers of such a process of deproletarianization. (shrink)

Biodiversity and genetic resources have become the focal point of major national and international biological and political debates regarding control, ownership, access, and erosion of critical resources. While these issues are key to environmental sustainability and food security, biodiversity and genetic resources must be seen in the broader context of their inextricable relationship to cultural diversity and to humans' view of nature. Nature is assumed to be constituted socially through a wide variety of human processes described collectively as culture. Three (...) significant cultural factors, technology, science, and capitalism, are largely responsible for the secularization and homogenization of food and agriculture and the remaking of nature. These processes and forces may simultaneously and unwittingly create the problems of declines in biodiversity, cultural diversity, and food equity. Indeed, it may well be that the only way to conserve cultural biodiversity in the field is to conserve cultural diversity among peoples. This reunification of biodiversity and cultural diversity and food and agriculture will require new paradigms and institutional mechanisms that allow us to show our care for each other through our reverence for nature. (shrink)

During the past decade, we have seen the introduction of market-based mechanisms in biodiversity policy. Biodiversity markets are considered powerful tools to slow down or even stop the ongoing loss of biodiversity by internalizing costs that are traditionally externalized. This paper questions these optimistic expectations. Can we save nature by selling it? Is conservation through commodification a viable option? This paper maps both the social and ecological problems of the commodification of nature that is a necessary precondition for biodiversity markets (...) to function. (shrink)

This article identifies ‘the tragedy of the commons’ as an essentially aggregative harm and considers what agents in such a scenario owe to one another. It proposes that the duty to take reasonable precautions requires that agents make efforts to establish collective solutions to any essentially aggregative harm to which they would otherwise contribute. Baylor Johnson has argued that the general obligation to promote the common good requires that agents make efforts to establish a collective agreement to avert a potential (...) tragedy of the commons. This article agrees with Johnson's analysis but argues that there are also negative duties, which give commons users additional moral reason to take collective action to prevent the destruction of the utility of the commons. These duties link commons users to resolving this particular problem and provide grounds to demand that they make greater efforts to prevent the destruction of the commons compared to bystanders. The article suggests that fulfilling negative duties can require establishing collective institutions with the power to regulate human action and interaction. This analysis could be applied to a range of social problems which result from the aggregation of actions and practices. (shrink)

he article combines Elinor Ostrom’s design principles for common-pool resources and human rights provisions, including subsequent clarifications and jurisprudence. It analyses whether stronger local self-governance, embedded in the natural resource dimension of peoples’ rights to self-determination is a recommendable approach. Two changes in understanding are noted. First, the universal approval of indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination as specified in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Second, the wide endorsement of the specific principle of free and prior informed (...) consent. As the exercise of peoples’ rights to self-determination is done on a collective level, it is important to have awareness of whether particularly affected and marginalized households and individuals are included or not included in the decision-making process. The article then reviews a range of new instruments adopted by the OECD and the UN for improved human rights awareness and compliance in the context of economic investments. The article finds that these instruments are still underutilized. Finally, the article identifies the role of human rights in bilateral investment treaties. It finds that there are less jurisdictional restrictions – as many treaties have a wide understanding of applicable law – than cognitive restrictions – as human rights competence is rarely sought when establishing tribunals mandated to solve investments disputes. (shrink)

At the end of a thoughtful article on the future of nuclear war, Wiesner and York concluded that: "Both sides in the arms race are... confronted by the dilemma of steadily increasing military power and steadily decreasing national security. It is our considered professional judgment that this dilemma has no technical solution. If the great powers continue to look for solutions in the area of science and technology only, the result will be to worsen the situation.".

The preservationist duties that conservationists would lay upon landowners to protect the natural environment obviously interfere with what those people do with their land. That is often taken to be an equally obvious ? albeit possibly justifiable ? violation of their rights in that property. But to say that, as landowners often do, would be to imply that property rights somehow embrace a ?right to destroy?. Closer inspection suggests that they do not. That would be a further right, additional to (...) and independent of all the component rights standardly associated with the right to private property. A right to destroy is implicit neither in the concept nor in the justifications of property rights, as they are standardly conceived. Conservationist policies cannot, therefore, properly be opposed on the grounds that they would necessarily violate people's property rights. (shrink)

A broad range of intellectual perspectives may be brought to bear on any important social institution. To this general rule, the institution of private property is no exception. The desirability of private property has been endlessly debated across the disciplines: philosophical, historical, economic, and legal. Yet there is very little consensus over its proper social role and limitations. Is it possible to find a unique solution to questions of property and private ownership, good for all resources and for all times? (...) The famous defense of private property that is found in chapter 5 of John Locke's Second Treatise of Government answers this question in the affirmative, for Locke writes as though all property was given to mankind in common, and then seeks to find the quickest and most expeditious way to convert all common property into private property. His implicit, but undefended, assumption is that common forms of property are both undesirable and unstable, while private forms of ownership are always just the opposite. Yet his preferred method for moving from a commons to a regime of private property—the unilateral decision to appropriate by each actor—is one that has been frequently condemned as a sop to unbridled egotism, even though it is subject to two constraints: the first against waste, and the second requiring the appropria-tor to leave “enough, and as good” for others. (shrink)

Humans have always played a crucial role in the evolutionary dynamics of agricultural biodiversity and thus there is a strong relationship between these resources and human cultures. These agricultural resources have long been treated as a global public good, and constitute the livelihoods of millions of predominantly poor people. At the same time, agricultural biodiversity is under serious threat in many parts of the world despite extensive conservation efforts. Ethical considerations regarding the collecting, research, and use of agricultural biodiversity are (...) currently topics of great concern. For example, easy access to genetic resources for breeding purposes is important, but international agreements and legal frameworks are necessary to ensure adequate recognition of the contributions of local communities and traditional farmers in creating and nurturing these resources. Here, we assess ethical principles in the context of existing codes of conduct that are relevant for agro-biodiversity researchers. We aim to create awareness among scientists and policy makers who are concerned with agro-biodiversity research and its potential impact on local communities. We encourage a serious assessment of the ethical principles presented here and hope to facilitate an integration of these principles into the reader’s personal ethical framework. Key ethical principles considered here include the importance of obtaining prior informed consent, equity, and the inalienability of rights of local communities and farmers. (shrink)

Fundamental aspects of human use of the environment can be explained by game theory. Game theory explains aggregate behaviour of the human species driven by perceived costs and benefits. In the 'game' of global environmental protection and conservation, the stakes are the living conditions of all species including the human race, and the playing field is our planet. The question is can we control humanity's hitherto endless appetite for resources before we irreparably harm the global ecosystem and cause extinction of (...) even more species? The central problem is that some proportion of the individuals or groups will behave selfishly. The inducement for using more than a fair share, or 'cheating', increases as that resource becomes rarer, thus the benefits of cheating increase. In addition, the total number of people is increasing, so the proportion of cheaters must decrease to even keep total resource use constant. Cost benefit analysis of the effect of regulation and incentives on potential cheaters may provide a rational approach to controlling environmental problems. While it is debatable that environmental values are constant across cultures, communal use of resources seems to follow global rules. Cooperative use and punishment of those who use more than their share appear to be ubiquitous in human societies. Schemes for controlling human impact on the global environment must take into consideration basic behaviours including development of social norms and the positive feedback created because resources become more valuable with increasing rarity leading to more incentive for consumption. (shrink)

This article examines the argument that biodiversity is crucial for well-functioning ecosystems and that such ecosystems provide important goods and services to our human societies, in short the ecosystem services argument (ESA). While the ESA can be a powerful argument for nature preservation, we argue that its dominant functionalist interpretation is confronted with three significant problems. First, the ESA seems unable to preserve the nature it claims to preserve. Second, the ESA cannot explain why those caring about nature want to (...) preserve it. Third, the ESA might undermine its own goal because it potentially decreases environmental motivations. (shrink)

“Fair and equitable benefit-sharing” is one of the objectives of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. In essence, benefit-sharing holds that countries, farmers, and indigenous communities that grant access to their plant genetic resources and/or traditional knowledge should share in the benefits that users derive from these resources. But what exactly is understood by “fair” and “equitable” in this context? Neither term is defined in the international treaties. (...) A complicating factor, furthermore, is that different motivations and perspectives exist with respect to the notion of benefit-sharing itself. This paper looks at six different approaches to benefit-sharing that can be extracted from the current debates on “Access and Benefit-Sharing.” These approaches form the basis of a philosophical reflection in which the different connotations of “fair and equitable” are considered, by analyzing the main principles of justice involved. Finally, the various principles are brought together in order to draw some conclusions as to how a fair and equitable benefit-sharing mechanism might best be realized. This results in several recommendations for policymakers. (shrink)

Focused on the impact of stringent intellectual property mechanisms over the uses of plant agricultural biodiversity in crop improvement, the article delves into a systematic analysis of the relationship between institutional paradigms and their technological contexts of application, identified as mass selection, controlled hybridisation, molecular breeding tools and transgenics. While the strong property paradigm has proven effective in the context of major leaps forward in genetic engineering, it faces a systematic breakdown when extended to mass selection, where innovation often displays (...) a collective nature. However, it also creates partial blockages in those innovation schemes rested between on-farm observation and genetic modification, i.e. conventional plant breeding and upstream molecular biology research tools. Neither overly strong intellectual property rights, nor the absence of well delineated protection have proven an optimal fit for these two intermediary socio-technological systems of cumulative incremental innovation. To address these challenges, the authors look at appropriate institutional alternatives which can create effective incentives for in situ agrobiodiversity conservation and the equitable distribution of technologies in plant improvement, using the flexibilities of the TRIPS Agreement, the liability rules set forth in patents or plant variety rights themselves, and other ad hoc reward regimes. (shrink)

: he commercialization of biotechnology, especially research and development by transnational pharmaceutical companies, is already excessive and is increasingly dangerous to distributive justice, human rights, and access of marginal populations to basic human goods. Focusing on gene patenting, this article employs the work of Margaret Jane Radin and others to argue that gene patenting ought to be more highly regulated and that it ought to be regulated with international participation and in view of concerns about solidarity and the common good. (...) The mode of argument called for on this issue is more pragmatic than logical, emphasizing persuasion based on evidence about the reality and effects of control of genetic research by profit-driven biotech companies. (shrink)

The issue of biopiracy has attracted considerable attention in recent years. The Convention on Biological Diversity adopted a principle of state sovereignty over biological resources and the genetic information contained within those resources to address this issue. It is argued that this principle has not been adequately justified and that there are other solutions to the issue of biopiracy, based on different theories of justice, that deserve greater consideration. These alternatives include the common heritage of mankind principle and the global (...) commons principle. (shrink)

In Europe and throughout the world, competence in English is spreading at a speed never achieved by any language in human history. This growing dominance of English is frequently perceived as being grossly unjust. This book is the first systematic treatment of the of the normative aspects of language policy and how this relates to justice.

In a new preface, Peter Singer discusses the prospects for the ethical approach he advocates."--BOOK JACKET.

One influential approach to environmental problems holds that their solution requires the definition of full liberal property rights over goods that will enable their value to be registered in actual or hypothetical markets. How adequate is that solution? In this paper I offer reasons to be sceptical, by placing recent liberal arguments in the context of older debates about property, in particular those concerned with the distribution of care. Although proposals for the extension of liberal property rights over environmental goods (...) often appeal to arguments from the need to distribute care, I show that there are conflicts between them. Care for particular places that embody the life of a community that has an existence over time is often expressed through resistance to liberal property rights. We express mutual obligations to members of a community through a denial of exclusive property rights over certain common goods. Also, what constitutes care for environmental goods itself is contested across class, occupation, culture, and history. Conflicts between those with different conceptions of care are often expressed through conflicts in property rights. The justification of property rights by appeal to particular accounts of proper care has, from the time of Locke to the present, been invoked to legitimate the appropriation of goods. The introduction and maintenance of liberal property-rights regimes involves the creation and sustenance of a particular distribution of social power, and should be understood as such. (shrink)

This paper explores the possibility of extending Locke’s theory with respect to tangible property so that it might offer a feasible theoretical basis for intellectual property too. The main conclusion is that such an attempt must fail. Locke’s theory comes in three parts: a general justification of property which serves to explain why assets ought to be under the exclusive control of individuals; a positive method of private appropriation whereby an individual acquires a prima facie exclusive claim to previously commonly (...) held natural resources; and third, a negative requirement that other individuals’ crucial interests are not harmed by such an appropriation. For each of these, the difficulties involved in applying that part of the theory to the sphere of ideas are discussed, and a central aspect of intellectual property that raises the problems of application is highlighted. (shrink)