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Accepted Paper:

"Compensation" and "Self-determination": A Contradiction?  
Antje Linkenbach (Universität Erfurt)

Paper short abstract:

The paper wants to focus on the issue of compensation. It will critically discuss models of compensation applied by industries, supposed to benefit the indigenous groups. It will further reflect on the implications of the notion of compensation and its relation to the right of self-determination.

Paper long abstract:

Ownership of indigenous and traditional knowledge is formally acknowledged in the Code of Ethics of the International Society of Ethnobiology. The Code states that these groups "must be fairly and adequately compensated for their contribution to ethnobiological research activities and outcomes involving their knowledge". The need for compensation and sharing of benefits was enforced in the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity. Especially the pharmaceutical industry has pioneered approaches to compensation and benefit-sharing. The paper will critically evaluate these approaches under the following main questions: who decides about forms of compensation, who are the beneficiaries, whose interests are guiding the compensation schemes?

The paper will further reflect on contexts and implications of the notion of compensation; this includes looking at the semantics of the term and asking about meaning and use of compensation in different social fields (law, labour, risk management). Does the concept a priori exclude equal participation of the two sides in negotiations? The concept of compensation will then be confronted with the concept of right, in particular the right of self-determination. Indigenous people clearly link control over their knowledge to land rights and self-determination and the question is whether a hegemonic notion of compensation might clash with the idea of self-determination as having control over one's life and resources and being able to freely decide about and pursue one's own economic, social and cultural developments.

Panel P26
Re-thinking intellectual property rights
  Session 1