Privatizing Genetic Resources: Biodiversity, Communities and Intellectual Property Rights

Abstract

It is undeniable that by definition a sustainable economic system supports biodiversity. Likewise, when biodiversity is on the decline due to human behaviour, it is explainable in part with reference to institutions, particularly to the lack of well-defined and stringently enforced property right regimes with regard to natural resources (Hanna et al., 1995; Sedjo, 1992; Anderson and Leal, 1991; Swanson, 1991, 1992, 1995). As a solution to the problem, following from this account, exclusive rights to natural resources should be created and allocated. Specifically, the standard answer of (economic) liberals points to the need to launch a process of privatization where resources are still common and to reinforce the existing private property regimes. However, it turns out to be anything but clear what it means to privatize and to whom property rights should be ascribed; the use of the notion ‘privatization’ is as equivocal as is that of ‘commons’ (see Aguilera-Klink, 1994). In this paper, I shall explore the idea of privatization of genetic resources in the context of biodiversity preservation.