Overview

The question of how genetic resources ought to be owned and controlled has become a controversial international political issue. The authors examine this issue from a normative perspective, discussing the four principles that govern the debate over genetic resource control. These four principles are proprietarian intellectual property rights (the dominant principle, reflecting Western influences); communitarian intellectual property rights (a principle bound up with the rights of indigenous peoples); national sovereignty (the principle at the heart of international law); and common heritage of mankind (the most recent principle reflecting Third World demands).

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ANTHONY J. STENSON teaches in the Department of Politics, University of Newcastle. He took a First in Politics in 1993 and obtained two British Academy Humanities Research Board Studentships; a one year research training programme in 1993/4 and a three year doctoral programme from 1994/7. He was awarded his PhD in 1998. He has published two book chapters with Tim Gray - one on the Common Fisheries Policy and the other on Cultural Communities and intellectual property rights in plant genetic resources. TIM S. GRAY is Professor of Politics, University of Newcastle, where he has lectured and taught since 1963. He was appointed Head of Department in 1994, and to a personal chair in Political Thought in 1996. Trained as a political theorist he has published books and articles on Herbert Spencer, Edmund Burke and Flora Tristan and on the concept of freedom. Developing an interest in environmental politics from 1990, he has also published articles and chapters in the politics of fishing, whaling, and population control. He is the editor of The Politics of Fishing and of UK Environmental Policy in the 1990s.

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