Meeting prep: UNPFII 12

Twelfth Session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
20-31 May 2013 (UN Headquarters, New York)

This session is marking a review year. The Forum will follow-up on its recommendations regarding health, education and culture; will hold a half-day discussion on the African region; will hold its comprehensive dialogue with UN agencies and funds, as well as with the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and the Chair of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; will discuss the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples; and will address issues related to the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The meeting will address a number of reports of relevance to TK, including: the report of the International Expert Group Meeting on “indigenous youth: identity, challenges and hope”; the report of the Inter-Agency Support Group Meeting on Indigenous Peoples; a study on resilience, traditional knowledge and capacity building for pastoralist communities in Africa; a study on engaging indigenous peoples more inclusively in the process of disaster risk reduction by respecting their linguistic and cultural practices; a consolidated report on extractive industries and their impact on indigenous peoples; and a study on how the knowledge, history and contemporary social circumstances of indigenous peoples are embedded in educational curricula. Visit the meeting’s website … View the meeting’s documents … Visit the meeting’s PaperSmart page …

 

Meeting review: CBA7

Seventh Conference on Community-based Adaptation to Climate Change
18-25 April 2013 (Dhaka, Bangladesh)

The CBA7 conference, organized by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the Bangladesh Centre for Advance Studies (BCAS), brought together over 250 international practitioners, scientists, government and non-government policy and decision makers. CBA focuses on innovative ways in which local communities deal with climate change impacts and integrate scientific and local knowledge in planning local adaptation strategies. This year, the event focused on the latest approaches for mainstreaming community-based adaptation into international, national and local planning and processes. Conference delegates and online participants learnt about ways that people around the world are adapting to climate change in both rural and urban settings, and how governments can embed adaptation in all policy arenas. During the meeting, government representatives from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, The Gambia and Zanzibar formed a network to support their efforts to factor climate change into national development planning. The network will enable policymakers and planners in countries at risk from climate change to share information and collaborate in ways that can strengthen their policies and plans by ensuring they consider how climate change could affect development, and is open to all countries.

Visit the conference’s website, including links to session recordings and presentations … Read the IIED media release of 25 April … Read a SciDev.Net article of 29 April …

 

This week in review … South Africa to launch national TK recording system

South Africa to Launch National Traditional Knowledge Recording System
IP Watch, 10 May 2013

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND: On 24 May, South Africa will be launching its National Recordal System aiming to catalogue its indigenous knowledge. The National Recordal System is an initiative of the South African Department of Science and Technology, with the ultimate goal of creating opportunities “for benefits to flow back to the communities.” The NRS includes the establishment of indigenous knowledge networks, provincial Indigenous Knowledge Systems Documentation Centers and an Information Communication Technology knowledge platform. It will be interactive, and benefit-sharing agreement forms will be accessible online. Read the article … Further information on the NRS …

 

This week in review … ECOSOC appoints new PFII members

Members of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues 2014-2016
PFII release, 6 May 2013

UN HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK: The President of the Economic and Social Council announced the appointment of eight Members of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues for the term 2014-2016 who had been nominated by indigenous peoples’ organizations. Previously, the Council had elected seven members nominated by governments. One member remains to be elected by the Council from the Asia-Pacific region. Their term begins on 1 January 2014 and lasts until 31 December 2016. The appointed members nominated by indigenous organizations include: Mariam Wallet Aboubakrine; Dalee Sambo Dorough; Joan Carling; Raja Devasish Roy; Kara-Kys Arakchaa; Maria Eugenia Choque Quispe; Edward John; and Valmaine Toki. The government-nominated members include: Joseph Goko Mutangah; Gervais Nzoa; Mohammad Hassani Nejad Pirkouhi; Oliver Loode; Aisa Mukabenova; Alvaro Esteban Pop Ac; and Megan Davis. Read the PFII release … Read the ECOSOC release …

 

This week in review … Southern African countries discuss capacity-building strategy for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage

Southern Africa: Towards a sub-regional capacity-building strategy for intangible cultural heritage
UNESCO release, 6 May 2013

PARIS, FRANCE: For the first time, Southern African countries met to create the professional and institutional environment required for the effective safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage in the sub-region. Held from 30 April o 2 May 2013 in Harare, Zimbabwe, a meeting of experts and officials from Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe addressed the basic components of a future capacity-building strategy in Southern Africa for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage at the sub-regional level. A number of UNESCO workshops and pilot projects on community-based inventorying in the sub-region since 2009 had laid the groundwork for the initiative. Read the UNESCO release …

 

Resource: IIED report on FPIC and extractive industries

FPIC and the extractive industries: a guide to applying the spirit of free, prior and informed consent in industrial projects
Abbi Buxton and Emma Wilson
IIED, March 2013 | ISBN 978-1-84369-909-5

This report seeks to articulate the relevance of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) to company policy and practice, while also providing a balanced consideration of the relative responsibilities of government and civil society. Oil, gas and mining companies are increasingly aware of the need to secure the trust of local communities to gain a ‘social license to operate’. Implementing a project without it can lead to operational delays, financial costs and litigation, or even project closure, violence and loss of life. FPIC is an indigenous peoples’ right, established in international conventions, requiring companies to engage with local communities to agree together on how projects are implemented; it is also a crucial part of gaining the social license to operate. There is a growing set of FPIC regulations to comply with, and responsible companies are increasingly aware that they need to have policies relating to FPIC. This paper offers guidance to those companies who are looking to engage with FPIC in a meaningful way. It focuses less on the letter of the law, which may differ in different jurisdictions, and more on exploring ‘the spirit of FPIC’, a deeper commitment to engage with local communities to reach shared agreement, allowing people to have a meaningful voice in deliberative decision-making processes related to their own development. The authors offer a three-level framework of transferable principles to implement the ‘spirit of FPIC’, as well as references to the plentiful step-by-step guidance that exists on implementing FPIC. The framework is intended to challenge companies to move beyond a culture driven by minimal compliance-based thinking, towards one based on a greater understanding of the importance of stakeholder engagement practices; an understanding which should benefit business as well as communities. It involves: complying with requirements for FPIC under international and national law, company policy and obligations to third parties, such as project lenders; implementing the ‘spirit of FPIC’ throughout the project life-cycle, by employing timely, transparent, deliberative processes to reach mutual agreement on future developments, whether or not this is required by third parties; and applying the ‘spirit of FPIC’ not only to indigenous communities, but to all significantly affected local communities, in line with emerging good practice guidance. Download the report [pdf] …

 

This week in review … UNCTAD expert meeting addresses IP and ABS, provides feedback to draft handbook

UNCTAD: IPRs in Health, Research, Cosmetics, Meet Access and Benefit Sharing
IP Watch, 29 April 2013

UNCTAD Handbook: IP and the CBD Protocol on Genetic Resources
IP Watch, 30 April 2013

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND: The interactions between intellectual property and international rules of global access and benefit-sharing (ABS) were explored recently by an expert group meeting, convened by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on 16-17 April 2013. Several panels held under the Ad Hoc Expert Group Meeting on the Development Dimensions of Intellectual Property: Biological Diversity and Access and Benefit Sharing shed light on IP and ABS in particular areas, such as natural ingredients used in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, and pandemic influenza preparedness. Among many speakers, Johanna von Braun, attorney-at-law for Natural Justice, presented cases of misappropriation of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, and challenges to prevent that misappropriation. She advised that ABS contracts should be well drafted to ensure certainty on what happens to the resources when they leave the country, and said that local communities need capacity building in order to be aware of their rights and be able to negotiate.

The meeting also served to provide feedback on a draft handbook on the Nagoya Protocol on ABS and the international intellectual property system, to be published by UNCTAD later this year. The draft handbook addresses the sources of international law, disclosure of origin, the patentability of life forms, limitations and exceptions to IP laws, positive protection of traditional knowledge, costs and benefits of geographical indications, and private contract law.

Read the article of 29 April … Read the article of 30 April …

 

Resource: IIED report on collective trademarks and biocultural heritage in the Potato Park, Peru

Collective trademarks and biocultural heritage: towards new indications of distinction for indigenous peoples in the Potato Park, Peru
Alejandro Argumedo
IIED, March 2013 | ISBN 978-1-84369-907-1

This paper presents the experience of the Potato Park communities in Cusco, Peru, in applying for formal protection through a collective trademark, and also in adopting an informal trademark for their products and services. The process of registering the collective trademark brought to light the incompatibility of the registration requirements with Peruvian law on indigenous governance, and the application was unsuccessful. The Potato Park communities have instead opted to use their trademark informally, and it is now widely recognised as a distinctive symbol of the Park. A survey found that as well as raising prices and increasing sales, the mark has helped to ensure social cohesion. However, while the trademark is informal, it lacks protection. Furthermore, experience shows that existing intellectual property tools tend to be unsuitable for protecting communities’ collective intellectual property, and even “soft” intellectual property tools such as collective trademarks and geographical indications can be beyond the legal and financial capacity of remote rural communities. The report concludes with a proposal for an alternative indigenous “biocultural heritage indication” which could draw on geographical indications, design rights and unfair competition law. Such a tool could open up the current IPR system to rural communities, alleviating poverty while protecting traditional knowledge, and strengthening biological and cultural diversity. Download the report [pdf] …