Comparative environmental law and orientalism : reading beyond the 'text' of traditional knowledge protection

This article uses traditional knowledge as a case study to address multiple discussions in the field of comparative law. First, it addresses the theoretical challenge of the role of comparative law as a critical research tool in the development of environmental law. Second, within the context of transnational legal processes, it questions the extent to which comparative law as a method can further the relationship between different levels of law making by distinct legal actors. It is timely to bring mainstream comparative law into conversation with critical perspectives from other disciplines such as postcolonial theory and poststructuralism when studying non-Western law. These issues have been firmly placed on the research agenda of comparative law scholars for quite a few years but studying these questions from the perspective of traditional knowledge brings a new outlook to these debates

Origin Related Intellectual Property Rights as Best Policy Option for the Protection of Traditional Cultural Expressions

PhDOver the past few decades, the protection of Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCEs) has generated lively debates within the international community and the questions of whether TCEs should be protected by Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and if so how, have been of increasing practical concern for TCEs holders and national policyrnakers in various countries. To date, however, work on the protection of TCEs has progressed slowly, and little has emerged in the way of concrete, binding law. Moreover, those instruments proposed as solutions appear unable to meet the range of concerns raised by TCEs holders and culturally-rich developing countries. Concerns raised by TCEs holders can be classified into four main categories. Firstly, they stress the difficulties they encounter in preventing and/or controlling the commercial use of their TCEs by third parties and in benefiting from this commercial isation themselves. Secondly, they express concerns about the inappropriate and offensive use of their TCEs. Thirdly, they wish to be attributed for their TCEs as well as have the possibility to object to any false attribution. Finally, they emphasise the need to ensure the identification and preservation of existing TCEs as well as their promotion, dissemination and continued evolution. The protection of TCEs was initially envisaged on a copyright model, because of the similarity of subject matter between copyright law and TCEs. However, although copyright law seems well suited to meet some of the needs and objectives of TCEs holders, it is limited in its potential for protecting TCEs. This thesis argues that "origin related intellectual property rights", such as trade marks, certification and collective marks and geographical indications, as well as passing off and laws against misrepresentation appear to be conceptually best suited for the protection of TCEs, because of their specific nature and characteristics. Such characteristics include the fact that they are usually produced within a community, which is often linked to a specific place, and according to traditional methods and know how transmitted from generation to generation, often using raw material from sustainable resources. In addition, this method of protection also seems to accommodate the fact that TCEs are usually already in the public 2 Abstract domain and to take into consideration some of the aims of TCEs holders such as the fact that they would like a protection that is unlimited in time. A system of protection based on origin related IPRs could offer practical advantages for TCEs holders since such category of rights used as such or with minor adaptations would enable them to obtain quick, practical and effective protection. In addition, there would be no need for the creation of a new sui generis IP or IP related system, which would take a long time to establish and may not be politically feasible anyway. The proposed approach will admittedly not address all the concerns of TCEs holders, but it will provide a balanced and workable compromise solution that could satisfy most of their concerns and policy objectives

Making Copyright Work for the Asian Pacific

This book provides a contemporary overview of developing areas of copyright law in the Asian Pacific region. While noting the tendency towards harmonisation through free trade agreements, the book takes the perspective that there is a significant amount of potential for the nations of the Asian Pacific region to work together, find common ground and shift international bargaining power. Moreover, in so doing, the region can tailor any regional agreements to suit local needs. The book addresses the development of norms in the region and the ways in which this can occur in light of the specific nature of the creator–owner–user paradigm in the region and the common interests of Indigenous peoples

Conceptualising Regulatory Change - Explaining Shifts in Telecommunications Governance

Drawing on perspectives from telecommunications policy and neo-Gramscian understandings of international political economy, this paper offers an explanation and analysis of the shifting patterns of regulation which have been evident in the telecommunications sector in recent years. It aims to illustrate explain and explore the implications of the movement of regulatory sovereignty away from the nation-state, through regional conduits, to global organisations in the crystallisation of a world system of telecommunications governance. Our central argument is that telecommunications governance has evolved from a regulatory arena characterised, in large part, by national diversity, to one wherein a more convergent global multilayered system is emerging. We suggest that the epicentre of this regulatory system is the relatively new World Trade Organisation (WTO). Working in concert with the WTO are existing well-established nodes regulation. In further complement, we see regional regulatory projects, notably the European Union (EU), as important conduits and nodes of regulation in the consolidation of a global regulatory regime. By way of procedure, we first explore the utility of a neo-Gramscian approach for understanding the development of global regulatory frameworks. Second, we survey something of the recent history - and, in extension, conventional wisdom - of telecommunications regulation at national and regional levels. Third, we demonstrate how a multilayered system of global telecommunications regulation has emerged centred around the regulatory authority of the WTO. Finally, we offer our concluding comments.Comment: 29th TPRC conference, 200

New Directions for Law in Australia

For reasons of effectiveness, efficiency and equity, Australian law reform should be planned carefully. Academics can and should take the lead in this process. This book collects over 50 discrete law reform recommendations, encapsulated in short, digestible essays written by leading Australian scholars. It emerges from a major conference held at The Australian National University in 2016, which featured intensive discussion among participants from government, practice and the academy. The book is intended to serve as a national focal point for Australian legal innovation. It is divided into six main parts: commercial and corporate law, criminal law and evidence, environmental law, private law, public law, and legal practice and legal education. In addition, Indigenous perspectives on law reform are embedded throughout each part. This collective work—the first of its kind—will be of value to policy makers, media, law reform agencies, academics, practitioners and the judiciary. It provides a bird’s eye view of the current state and the future of law reform in Australia

Democratic Multiplicity

Our structures of democratic governance are often characterized by 'dysfunctionality', 'hollowing out', and 'gridlock'. This volume proposes an approach grounded in five different modes of democratic praxis. In exploring various democratic traditions, it recognizes that addressing eco-social crises requires coordination and cooperation among them

Harmonization or Homogenization? The Globalization of Law and Legal Ethics--An Australian Viewpoint

This Article examines the pressures of globalization on the practice of law and legal ethics from an Australian perspective. The Article first examines the positive aspects of globalization and then turns to the potentially disruptive and homogenizing aspects of globalization upon indigenous and non-Western societies. Next, the Article considers how globalization threatens to disrupt tradition and culture in Western societies, specifically focusing on the tradition of the law and legal practice. Finally, the Author discusses the response of the Australian legal profession to the demands of globalization. The Author examines changes that have been implemented to the legal practice and the structure of the legal services market, particularly in the state of New South Wales. The Article concludes by predicting that globalization has the potential for undermining legal ethics

Colonialisms, post-colonialisms and lusophonies: proceedings of the 4th International Congress in Cultural Studies

Colonialismos e pós-colonialismos são todos diferentes, mesmo quando referidos exclusivamente à situação lusófona. Neste contexto, mais do que procurar boas respostas, importa determinar quais as questões pertinentes aos nossos colonialismos e pós-colonialismos lusófonos. Com efeito, problematizar a própria questão é começar por descolonizar o pensamento. Em nosso entender, esta é uma das tarefas candentes no processo de re-imaginação da Lusofonia, que passa, atualmente, pela procura de um pensamento estratégico que inclua uma reflexão colonialista/pós-colonialista/descolonialista. Esta tarefa primeira, e mesmo propedêutica a qualquer construção gnoseológica, de descolonizar o pensamento hegemónico onde quer que ele se revele, não pode deixar de implicar as academias, centros de produção do saber e do conhecimento da realidade cultural, política e social. Neste sentido, descolonizar o pensamento sobre a Lusofonia passará por colocar em causa e instabilizar o que julgamos já saber e ser como ‘sujeitos lusófonos’, ‘países lusófonos’, ‘comunidades lusófonas’. Trata-se, assim, de instabilizar a uniformidade, mas também as diferenças instituídas, que frequentemente não são mais do que um novo género de cânone integrador e dissolvente da diferença. Por outro lado, não podemos deixar de praticar uma atitude vigilante, de cuidado e suspeição, em face do discurso sobre a diferença irredutível, que pode tornar-se (como no passado) na estéril celebração do exótico. Fazer com que a diferença instabilize o que oficialmente se encontra canonizado como ‘diferença dentro do cânone’, implica negociar e re-inscrever identidades sem inverter dualismos. Uma reflexão pós-colonial no contexto lusófono não pode evitar o exercício da crítica às antigas dicotomias periferia/centro; cosmopolitismo/ruralismo, civilizado/selvagem, negro/branco, norte/sul, num contexto cultural de mundialização, transformado por novos e revolucionários fenómenos de comunicação, que têm também globalizado a marginalidade. A tarefa de re-imaginar a Lusofonia implicará necessariamente a deslocação, inversão ou até implosão, do pensamento dual eurocêntrico, obrigando-nos a repensá-la dentro de uma mais vasta articulação entre local e global

The Mystery of Capital and the Construction of Social Reality

John Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality and Hernando de Soto’s The Mystery of Capital shifted the focus of current thought on capital and economic development to the cultural and conceptual ideas that underpin market economies and that are taken for granted in developed nations. This collection of essays assembles 21 philosophers, economists, and political scientists to help readers understand these exciting new theories

Colonialisms, post-colonialisms and lusophonies: Proceedings of the 4th International Congress in Cultural Studies

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