The recent climate summit in Copenhagen has given way to widespread disappointment: a global audience had high hopes for a breakthrough. Yet the preliminary results from our research group’s participant observation at WIPO in Geneva would indicate that the climate summit, preceded by preparatory intergovernmental meetings beforehand, certainly did achieve what Barak Obama called “meaningful [...]
Imagine delegates of more or less 180 countries assembling in one hall, ceremoniously beginning a session for an entire week. All of them are diplomats or at least accustomed to diplomatic habits. All of them received clear instructions on what should and should not happen during this session. While friendly opening statements are exchanged inofficial [...]
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) provides a forum for international policy debate and development of legal mechanisms and practical tools concerning the protection of traditional knowledge (TK) and traditional expressions (TCEs/folklore) against misappropriation and misuse, and the intellectual property (IP) aspects of access to and benefit sharing in genetic resources (GR).
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Anthropology has long since been concerned with economic and political processes of the valorization of culture. Be it the “discovery” of specific cultural practices as ideological and monetary assets, UNESCO’s conventions on the safeguarding of cultural heritage or WIPO’s Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC on GRTKF), there has been an ongoing and extended discussion on the intricacies of bringing culture to the market, preventing the misappropriation of cultural expressions and knowledges and protecting world heritage. Yet, only little has been written on the concrete negotiation and decision-making processes on the international level.
In October 2008 various researchers of our interdisciplinary research group on cultural property went to Geneva in order to observe international negotiations at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). In particular, we attended the 13th session of the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC GRTKF), as this is [...]