IGTN maintains that countries have the sovereign right and responsibility to protect their communities' health, biological, and agricultural resources, and conserve their biological diversity and rejects the inclusion of Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in global, regional, and bilateral trade agreements.
Women are often the custodians of traditional knowledge such as music, handicrafts, traditional medicine, and agriculture and biodiversity systems and rely on age-old life systems and practices for medicinal and subsistence purposes.
Including intellectual property rights (IPR) in trade agreements not only promotes monopoloy privilege of transnational corporations but also discourages developing countries from developing their own potential. The restrictions on access to affordable medicines have severe reprecussions for millions of poor people around the world who cannot afford or do not have access to essential medicines.
The IGTN opposes the inclusion of IPR in trade agreements for all of these reasons and also because this inclusion is a direct assault on the sovereign rights and responsibilities of nations and ignores the fundamental role that women and indigenous communities play in maintaining and securing these rights around the world.
The following feature articles address different aspects of the issues surrounding intellectual property rights and trad agreements.
Additional articles are available in the IGTN Resource Library.
