CIPIL Evening Seminar: '"Just" Sharing: The Virtues of Digital Sequence Information Benefit-Sharing for the Common Good'

Title: ''"Just" Sharing: The Virtues of Digital Sequence Information Benefit-Sharing for the Common Good'

Speaker: Professor Margo Bagley, Emory University School of Law

Biography: 

Margo A. Bagley is an Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law. She returned to Emory in 2016 after ten years at the University of Virginia School of Law, where she held the Hardy Cross Dillard chair. Professor Bagley served on the National Academies’ Committee on University Management of Intellectual Property and the National Academies’ Committee for Advancing Commercialization from the Federal Laboratories. She is a technical expert to the African Union in World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) matters, and on digital sequence information issues in UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) matters. She is also Friend of the Chair in the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge, and Folklore, and served as a member of the CBD’s Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Digital Sequence Information on Genetic Resources. She has served as a consultant to the FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture Secretariat, an expert advisor to the Government of Mozambique in WIPO matters, and is a collaborator in the Harvard University Global Access in Action (GAiA) program. Professor Bagley has taught U.S., international, and comparative patent law courses in several countries and has published numerous articles, book chapters, and monographs as well as two books with co-authors. A chemical engineer by training, Professor Bagley worked in industry for several years before attending law school and is a co-inventor on a patent for reduced fat peanut butter.

Abstract: 

Genome sequence information is being used to develop improvements in diverse product areas from agriculture to therapeutics. In fact, the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines required access to the genome sequence of the virus. Beyond the COVID-19 context, however, vast amounts of what is being called digital sequence information (DSI) are being used, and patented, without permission from the countries that own the genetic resources from which the sequences are derived. This issue is stymieing negotiations in several multilateral fora, including the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its Nagoya Protocol. These treaties obligate users of genetic resources to share the benefits of resource utilization with the resource providers. But parties disagree profoundly on whether these obligations extend to DSI. And as DSI often obviates the need for access to tangible material, monetary benefits are likely to decline even further. This Article identifies challenges to and opportunities for achieving “just” sharing outcomes on DSI under the CBD and Nagoya Protocol and argues for the development of a global multilateral benefit sharing mechanism as a more just and efficient vehicle for compliance with benefit-sharing obligations while retaining open access to sequence information. The prime benefit-sharing beneficiaries are intended to be the indigenous peoples and local communities who conserve and safeguard global biodiversity, yet who often are the most socioeconomically deprived among us. As such, this Article also situates the DSI benefit-sharing controversy within the larger societal moments focused on justice for the vulnerable and climate change mitigation.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357028113_Just_Sharing_The_Virtues_of_Digital_Sequence_Information_Benefit-Sharing_for_the_Common_Good

Zoom Registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_6913CWc3Rj2g_TqVnW-YOw