Biodiversity: Opportunities and Obligations

Mr. Kushan discusses the technology transfer provisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and outlines three themes found in the Convention related to technology transfer: benefit sharing, sovereign rights, and intellectual property rights protection. After briefly explaining the first two themes, the Article focuses on the third theme, the protection (or lack thereof) of intellectual property rights in the Convention. Mr. Kushan explains how the ideological split on intellectual property rights protection between the North and South found its way into the Convention and created ambiguous messages on intellectual property rights. Southern countries, who fear that strong intellectual property rights would hinder technology flow to Southern markets, view the Convention as providing only limited intellectual property rights.

The Article also presents the Northern view that protection of property rights must be a precondition to technology transfer. Finally, Mr. Kushan discusses how sharing the commercial benefits of a resource's use with the source country, whether through compensation or technology transfer, may work to conserve and protect biodiversity.