“The Human Genome Diversity Project: The Politics of Patents at the Intersection of Race, Religion Research Ethics, and Human Rights”

“The Human Genome Diversity Project: The Politics of Patents at the Intersection of Race, Religion Research Ethics, and Human Rights”

“The Human Genome Diversity Project: The Politics of Patents at the Intersection of Race, Religion Research Ethics, and Human Rights” (with Bita Amani). Law and Policy 27 (1): 152-188 (Special issue on Law, Technology and Development).

  • Reprinted in William Gallagher, ed., Intellectual Property (a volume in the International Library of Essays in Law and Society, Aldershott: Ashgate Publishing, 2007) 479-518.

Abstract: The patenting of human genetic materials provokes wide-ranging misgivings about the appropriate place and scope of intellectual property protections.  The issues implicated range from anti-competitive practices in the market, the imposition of limits of biomedical research, increasing costs for health care, research ethics, potentials for racial discrimination, and various violations for human rights.  Exploring controversies around the Human Genome Diversity Project, patents on genetic sequences, and patents on higher life forms such as the so called “Harvard mouse,” the authors find that North American patent policy has developed in the absence of necessary political debate.  They link this de-politicization to the hegemony of neo-liberal principles most fully demonstrated by the incorporation of intellectual property under international trade negotiations.  They point, however, to the recent emergence and increasing audibility of new social movements that seek to reposition issues of intellectual property in larger debates about human rights, distributional equalities, and social justice.

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Date Published: 2005
Publisher: Law and Policy
Publisher Website: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14679930