Paul Dunshirn, pre-doc at the Research Platform Governance of Digital Practices and research fellow at MARIPOLDATA, will participate in the IASC 2021 Knowledge Commons Virtual Conference, and present his doctoral project within the panel on 'Intellectual Property and Biological Knowledge Commons', taking place on Friday, 11 June 2021.
Topic:
Commons governance of marine genetic resources in waters beyond national jurisdiction
Abstract:
Within the substantive literature on genetic or genomic commons, only sparse attention has been paid to genetic resources from marine environments. So far, these marine genetic resources have mostly been extracted from national waters, and have proven to be of great value to research and commerce (e.g. for the development of medicines or chemicals). However, rapid technological advances are currently opening up new possibilities for research on marine genetic materials in the high and deep seas beyond national jurisdiction. Different to genetic materials taken from national territories, the specific governance challenges of these novel marine genetic resources lie in the lack of a clear ownership regime under international law, coupled with strong global disparities between Northern and Southern states in their capacity to profit from these resources. The current moment offers a unique opportunity for studying this issue, as the international community of states is currently discussing a legally binding instrument to govern these marine resources in the so-called “BBNJ negotiations”. In this context, our research project explores the specific governance challenges and institutional affordances brought about by this case of a global common resource. We aim to contribute to the literature on knowledge commons by identifying parallels and differences to other cases of knowledge or information resources, particularly in their global dimensions. Additionally, the project introduces an innovative methodology for studying knowledge commons, using a large dataset from GenBank and from patent databases to explain behaviors of important research institutions and companies from a game-theoretical perspective.
Further information:
IASC 2021 Knowledge commons Virtual Conference
