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This discussion paper from the South Centre and Center for International Environmental Law, discusses the international transfer of environmentally sound technologies within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The authors present an overview of the UNFCCC's structure for negotiation, including the legal frameworks. They review the history of the technology transfer debate from the inception of the UNFCCC to the post-Poznan landscape and discuss relevant intellectual property agreements including the World Intellectual Property Organization.

They conclude that the expert group on technology transfer will continue to influence how technology transfer is treated within the UNFCCC and call on industrialised countries to recognise the real need for technology transfer and funds from developing countries, rather than using technology transfer as a political tool to bargain for binding mitigation targets.

This article examines the US Bayh–Dole (BD) Act — a 1980s measure that sought to stimulate science-based economic growth by encouraging universities to patent inventions resulting from government-funded research — and assesses its suitability for developing countries.

The authors look at how and why advocates of BD-type initiatives sometimes overstate its impact in the United States and discuss the problems the act has caused for American biotechnology and information technology.

They outline the policy options for developing countries seeking to improve the contributions universities make to economic development and provide a list of safeguards that should be put in place before adopting laws styled after the act. These include no exclusive licensing, transparent patenting and government authority to issue additional licenses.

The authors conclude that policies to develop public sector research and development are context-specific and it is unclear whether any of the positive impacts of BD in the United States would arise in developing countries following similar legislation.

In this paper - which is targeted at national-level policy makers - the author explores the complex issue of traditional knowledge protection, and deems its protection to be necessary on utilitarian grounds.

The author argues that attempts to define traditional knowledge (TK) should focus on demarcating the nature of contribution that such knowledge could have to industrial research and development. The emphasis on the nature of the information itself serves as the best parameter of what the limits of "community/communities" are, and what sort of knowledge ought to be protected and made contractible through an intellectual property right.

The most effective options to protect traditional medicinal knowledge - the focus of the paper -  appear to be those of trade secrecy or a system of community intellectual property rights. Categories of TK that do not fall within such criteria could be documented into databases to prevent third parties from claiming patents on already existing knowledge.

But a well defined right is only the first step in empowering communities. A large onus rests on the design of institutions that will put this right into an enforceable framework. These institutions would have two tasks: to represent communities effectively and to provide rules of contract formation that take into account the difficulties of dealing with information as a resource. The author acknowledges that the effective operation of such institutions may not be at all easy to achieve.

The author draws on various perspectives presented in the literature on intellectual property rights, food, farming, biodiversity, and the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and related agreements. He highlights the policy questions for developing countries by TRIPS, examines the key ethical, economic, environmental and social issues surrounding its provisions, and considers the possible contributions of overseas development assistance.

The report concludes that the TRIPS agreement could either undermine food security and biodiversity or enhance it, depending upon the relative effects of the various provisions — the costs and benefits are not clear cut nor are they likely to be equally distributed. The author recommends that until the influence of intellectual property rights on agriculture and biodiversity are better understood, flexibility within the TRIPS agreement should be retained.

The paper is written for policy makers, primarily in developing countries, in agriculture, environment and trade and those responsible for ensuring policy coherence across government departments.

A detailed discussion paper that presents a human rights approach to intellectual property rights. The paper was submitted to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for its discussion on "The right of everyone to benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author", which took place in Geneva in November 2000.

The paper starts with the premise that the manner in which creative works, cultural heritage, and scientific knowledge are turned into property has significant human rights implications. Various international human rights instruments have enumerated the right of an author, creator, and inventor to some form of recognition and benefit from their intellectual products — including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Article 15 (1) (c).

Recent trends underscore the need for a human rights approach to intellectual property; as various economic actors rush to stake claims over creative works and forms of knowledge — for example, through the provisions of the international agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights — human rights are being trampled. The author warns that unless human rights advocates provide an effective intellectual and organisational counterweight to economic interests, the intellectual property landscape will be reshaped in the years ahead without adequate consideration of the impact on human rights.