Teshager W. Dagne

The Application of Intellectual Property Rights to Biodiversity Resources: A Technique for the South Countries to Maintain Control over the Biodiversity Resources in Their Territories?

With the increased industrial application of biological resources, there has been a steep rise in the economic and commercial utility of such resources. This has resulted in the emergence of a new era of discovery and patent filings by individuals and corporeal organs, in the form of biological processes and plant varieties. On the other hand, biodiversity rich countries of the south have started to assert their sovereignty over the resources in their territories by claiming rights of ownership of the resources. Due to the huge financial benefits that modification and commercialisation of biological resources can confer, biodiversity has now become a subject of intense arguments and trade negotiations.The article begins with a brief discussion of the rules regulating rights over biodiversity resources under the World Trade Organizations Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. Part III examines the background and context of controversies over the emerging practices of registering Intellectual Property Rights over biodiversity resources by different countries, while the next part assesses the merits of Geographical Indications and Trademarks as instruments of control of biodiversity resources. Then follows a discussion on the utility of Intellectual Property Rights to the developing countries in maintaining control over the biodiversity resources in their territories. Part VI concludes the paper with several suggestions, and raises the challenging impediments to the subject.

The Shrimp Turtle Case: A Battleground for the Environmentalists and the International Trade Community

The Shrimp-Turtle Case constitutes one of the most important decisions ever decided by the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body that touch upon trade and environment issues. The case left analysts with mixed feelings as far as the relationship between trade liberalization and environmental protection is concerned. At one hand, it provided some important clarifications in favor of the right of governments to protect the environment through unilateral measures. On the other hand, the government taking such measures at the case at hand once again found itself to be in violation of its World Trade Organization obligations. Using the Shrimp-Turtle Case as a a jumping off point,the article considers the interaction between trade and the environment in the WTO, analyzes the issues from the perspective of the various schools of thought, and highlights the issues of due significance for future researches.