Biodiversity, the diversity of life forms—plants, animals, microbes—is the ecological basis of life. It is also the ‘natural capital’ of two thirds of humanity who depend on biodiversity as their means of production—in farming, in fisheries, in health care and crafts.

This survival base of the poor is now being viewed as ‘raw material’ for global business and industry, both because the older chemical technologies are failing, in agriculture and health, and because continued capital accumulation is driving the launching of new technologies, like biotechnology, for enlarged control over markets and resources.

The manufacture of Sevin at the Union Carbide Plant in Bhopal led to the Bhopal gas leak disaster which killed thousands and has disabled more than 400,000 people.

Meanwhile, as a recognition of the ecological failure of the chemical route to pest control, the use of plant-based pesticides is becoming popular in the industrialized world. Corporations that have promoted the use of chemicals are now looking for biological options. In the search for new markets and control over the biodiversity base for the production of biopesticides and chemicals, MNCs are claiming IPRs on neem-based biopesticides.

This experience with agrichemicals is replicated in the field of drugs and medicines as well. Ironically, as a result of increasing public awareness of the side effects of hazardous drugs and the rise of strains resistant to antibiotics, the western pharmaceutical industry is increasingly turning to the plant-based system of Indian and Chinese medicine. Indigenous medical systems are based on over 7,000 species of medicinal plants and on 15,000 medicines of herbal formulations in different systems. The Ayurvedic texts refer to 1,400 plants, Unani texts to 342, the Siddha system to 328. Homeopathy uses 570, of which approximately 100 are Indian plants. The economic value of medicinal plants to 100 million rural households is unmeasurable.

While biodiversity and indigenous systems of knowledge meet the needs of millions of people, new systems of patents and intellectual property rights are threatening to appropriate these vital resources and knowledge systems from the Third World, and convert them into the monopoly of northern corporate interests. Patents are therefore at the heart of the new colonialism.

The adjective ‘patent’ means open, and originally patents referred to the "letters patent" or open letters which were the official documents by which certain privileges, rights, ranks or titles were conferred by sovereign rulers. They were ‘open’ because they were publicly announced and had a seal of the sovereign grantor on the inside, rather than outside. Charters and letters which were given by European monarchs to discover and conquer foreign lands on their behalf were referred to as letters patent.

Patents have, through history, been associated with colonization. At the beginning of colonization of the world by Europe, they were aimed at conquest of territory, now they are aimed at the conquest of economies. The first such charter was granted on 17 April 1492 by Queen Isabel of Castelle and King Ferdinand of Aragon to Christopher Columbus. As Djedal Kadir has stated, this charter was "The literal prototype, the paradigm and locus classicus of its genre. Columbus we might say, holds the patent on new world patents and licenses to conquer."

Letters, patents and charters created property rights to conquered lands. The most frequent phrase in Columbus charter the Capitulaciones, de Santa Fe, was the dual verb "discover and conquer". It was used seven times to assert rights to all "islands and mainlands" before their discovery.

Five hundred years after Columbus, a more secular version of the same project of colonisation continues through patents and intellectual property rights. The Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement of the WTO is a new version of the old patent charters and the Papal Bull. The freedom that TNCs are claiming through TRIPs is the freedom that European colonies have claimed since 1942 as their natural right to the territories and wealth of non-European peoples.

These patents for discovery and conquest provide the background for the contemporary conflicts over patents generated by GATT/WTO, which are often viewed by the Third World as tools of recolonisation but viewed as "natural" a right as conquest was during colonialism by western powers.

There are of course differences in yesterday’s colonisation and today’s recolonisation. Religion is not the ultimate justification for today’s conquest. Recolonisation is a "secular" project, but there is a new religion of the market that drives this so-called secular project.

Territory, gold and minerals are no longer the objects of conquest. Markets and economic systems are what have to controlled. Knowledge itself has to be converted into property, just as land was during colonisation. This is why today ‘patents’ have been covered by the broader label of "intellectual property" or property in the "products of the mind". Just as land that was claimed to have been "discovered" and was treated as "Terra Nullius" or Empty Land in spite of being inhabited by indigenous people just because it was not inhabited by white Europeans, knowledge that is claimed to have been "invented" and hence "patented" and converted into "intellectual property" is often an existing innovation in indigenous knowledge systems.

The claim to invention, like the claim to discovery in the patent charters of colonial conquest, is the justification for the takeover of market systems and economic systems through globalised patent regimes. The cloak of reward to inventiveness hides the real object—the control over the global economy. This secular conquest of diverse knowledge systems and economies is at the heart of the intense conflicts and controversies on patents.

Through patents and genetic engineering, new colonies are being carved out. The land, the forests, the rivers, the oceans, and the atmosphere have all been colonized, eroded, and polluted. Capital now has to look for new colonies to invade and exploit for its further accumulation. These new colonies are, in my view, the interior spaces of the bodies of women, plants, and animals. Resistance to biopiracy is a resistance to the ultimate colonization of life itself—of the future of evolution as well as the future of non-Western traditions of relating to and knowing nature. It is a struggle to protect the freedom of diverse species to evolve. It is a struggle to conserve both cultural and animal diversity.

In this new colonisation through patents, land has been replaced by life, the church has been replaced by the WTO, and the merchant adventurers like Columbus, Sir John Cabot, Sir Slumphery Gilbert, Sir Walter Raleigh have been replaced by transnational corporations. In fact, the TRIPs agreement was drafted and introduced in the Uruguay Round of GATT by an industry coalition, the Intellectual Property Committee.

James Enyart of Monsanto, commenting on the IPC strategy, states:

TRIPs globalises the IPR regimes of western industrialised societies, and introduces patents and IPRs on seeds and plants, animals and microbes. Prior to the Uruguay Round, IPRs were not covered by GATT. Each country had its own national IPR laws to suit its ethical and socioeconomic conditions. The most significant change in IPRs through TRIPs was the expansion of the domain of subject matter which is patentable. Article 27.1 of TRIPs on Patentable Subject Matter states that patents shall be available for any inventions, whether products or processes, in all fields of technology, provided that they are new, involve an inventive step and are capable of industrial application.

The removal of all limits on patentability was a demand of the MNCs. This undoes the exclusion in India’s patent law, for example, which did not grant patents for food and medicine and allowed only process patents for medicine. The build-up of indigenous capacity, the self-reliance in medicine, the ability to control prices and keep them low which has been made possible by the 1970 act are all seen by MNCs as loss of profits.

TRIPs has also expanded the scope of patentability to cover life forms. Article 27.53(b) of the TRIPs agreement of the WTO refers to the patenting of life. This article enables piracy of indigenous knowledge, and the same interests which see process innovation as involving no inventiveness attempt to claim patents on nature’s processes and indigenous knowledge as invention. The Article states that

This article forces countries to change patent laws to introduce patents for life forms and introduce plant variety legislation. The first part of the Article addresses the patenting of life. On first reading, it appears that the article is about the exclusion of plants and animals from patentability. However, the words ‘other than micro-organisms’ plants and animals produced by ‘non-biological’ and ‘micro-biological’ processes make patenting of micro-organisms and genetically engineered plants and animals compulsory. Since micro-organisms are living organisms, making their patenting compulsory is the beginning of a journey down what has been called the slippery slope that leads to the patenting of all life.

The movement against Biopiracy and against TRIPs has emerged as one of the core components of the anti-globalisation struggle. It includes the movements of indigenous communities, movements of farmers, women’s movements, health movements, ecology movements. It is also among the few areas in which Third World states have resisted the hegemony of the North and made the review of TRIPs one of the most significant arenas of North-South conflicts.

Biopiracy and TRIPs have also pitted the WTO against other international agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources of the Food and Agriculture Organisation. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is the international treaty that was signed at the 1st Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, in 1992. Almost 20 countries are party to the CBD, though seven countries, including the US, have not ratified it. The TRIPs agreement which has expanded patents to cover life forms undermines the potential and promises of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Since individual countries which are members of both treaties have to implement both of them, the conflicts between CBD and TRIPs has serious problems for implementation.

The entire structure of patenting of seeds and plants in the U.S. and in TRIPs is based on an arbitrary decision of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in the Hibberd case in 1985. Prior to this 1985 decision, starting in 1930, the U.S. Congress had granted carefully crafted intellectual property protection for plants. But these laws included important exemptions for farmers and researchers.

The 1985 decision redefined plants as machines and other manufactures, and since then thousands of patents on plants have been given in the U.S. The U.S. has also pressurized the rest of the world into implementing plant patents through TRIPs. The U.S. IPR orthodoxy is based on a fallacious idea that people do not innovate or generate knowledge unless they can derive private profit. However, greed is not a ‘fundamental act of human nature’ but a dominant tendency in societies that reward it. In the area of seeds and plant genetic resources, innovation of both the ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ systems has so far been guided by the larger human good.

The existing international agreement that covers plant breeders’ rights is the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants—the UPOV Convention. The UPOV Convention was adopted initially by five European countries and membership was restricted to European countries till 1986. At that time the Convention was revised and membership opened to all countries. UPOV was signed in 1961 and came into force in 1968. Earlier, the applied version of this Convention was UPOV 1978. Then, a revised version, UPOV 1991, was negotiated and it has come into effect.

UPOV currently has twenty member states including most EU countries, several European countries, Japan, the US and some others. It has no developing country members. It has, therefore, evolved as a legislation suitable to the socioeconomic context of industrialized countries where farmers do not form a large part of the population and do not have any control over plant breeding or seed supply. This situation is very different from contexts like ours where the majority of the population continues to be engaged in farming and farmers’ seed production and supply system is still the main source of seed.

The objective of UPOV is to grant certain exclusive rights to plant breeders who develop new varieties of plants. Normally, farmers provide the source material to the breeders for the development of new varieties. They are also the users of the new varieties developed by the breeders. There is a need for a balance between breeders’ rights and what has been called the farmer’s privilege.

However, the UPOV Convention is rigid, requiring that members adopt its standards and scope of protection as national law. It has resulted in a high degree of standardization and goes against the reality of biological diversity and the socioeconomic diversity of different countries. It is therefore inappropriate as a sui generis system evolved to protect plants, people and creativity in diverse realities.

The standardization is built into the way plant varieties are defined. To be eligible for protection, a variety must be:

This definition by its very nature rules out farmers’ varieties and destroys biodiversity and produces uniformity as necessity. The reward under such a system of Plant Breeders’ Rights (PBR) does not go towards breeding to maintain and enhance diversity and sustainability, but towards the destruction of biodiversity and creating uniform and hence ecologically vulnerable agricultural system. Therefore, PBR legislation, like UPOV, is inherently incapable of protecting farmers’ rights arising from the role of farmers as breeders who innovate and produce diverse farmers’ varieties, which forms the basis for all other breeding systems.

Movements for farmers’ rights have been based on the inalienable right of farmers to save and exchange seed freely and for the recognition of farmers’ breeding. In India, the farmers’ rights movement has taken the shape of the Bija Satyagraha. This massive movement—the Seed Satyagraha—has emerged over the past few years in response to the threats of recolonization through GATT, especially its intellectual property rights clauses. According to Gandhi, no tyranny can enslave a people who consider it immoral to obey laws that are unjust. As he stated in Hind Swaraj: "As long as the superstition that people should obey unjust laws exists, so long will slavery exist. And a passive resister alone can remove such a superstition."

Satyagraha is the key to self-rule, or swaraj. The phrase that echoed most during India’s freedom movement was "Swaraj hamara janmasidh adhikar hai" (self-rule is our birthright). For self-rule did not imply governance by a centralized state, but by decentralized communities. "Nate ne raj" (our rule in our village) is one slogan from India’s grassroots environmental movement.

At a massive rally in Delhi in March 1993, a charter of farmers’ rights was developed. One of the rights is local sovereignty. Local resources have to be managed on the principle of local sovereignty, wherein the natural resources of the village belong to that village.

A farmer’s right to produce, exchange, modify, and sell seed is also an expression of swaraj. Farmers’ movements in India have declared they will violate the GATT treaty, if it is implemented, since it violates their birthright.

The positive assertion of local control over local resources has emerged as the Jaiv Panchayat (Living Democracy) Movement.

The Biodiversity movements are as diverse as the cultures and domains from which they emerge. However, beyond diversity and pluralism, there are two major strands emerging. One strand is committed to challenging the commodification of life intrinsic to TRIPs and WTO, and the erosion of cultural and biological diversity intrinsic to biopiracy. In this strand of the biodiversity movement, resistance to biopiracy is a resistance to the ultimate colonization of life itself—of the future of evolution as well as the future of non-Western traditions of relating to and knowing nature. It is a struggle to protect the freedom of diverse species to evolve. It is a struggle to protect the freedom of diverse cultures to evolve. It is a struggle to conserve both cultural and biological diversity. The biodiversity movement is therefore a struggle over worldviews.

The second strand is more technocratic and seeks amelioration within the commercial and legal logic of commodification of life and monopolies on knowledge. The code words for this strand are ‘bioprospecting’ and `benefit-sharing’.

A common proposal offered as a solution to biopiracy is that of bioprospecting and benefit-sharing, i.e. those who claim patents on indigenous knowledge should share benefits from the profits of their commercial monopolies with the original innovators. Bioprospecting is being promoted as the model for relationships between corporations who commercialize indigenous knowledge and indigenous communities which have collectively innovated and evolved the knowledge.

However, bioprospecting is merely a sophisticated form of biopiracy. There are two basic problems with this model. Firstly, if knowledge already exists, a patent based on it is totally unjustified since it violates the principles of novelty and non-obviousness. Granting patents for indigenous knowledge amounts to stating that the patent system is about power and control, not inventiveness and novelty. Secondly, the appropriation of indigenous knowledge vital for food and medicine, its conversion into an exclusive right through patents, and the establishment of an economic system in which people have to buy what they had produced for themselves is a system which denies benefits and creates impoverishment, not a process which promotes ‘benefit-sharing’. It is the equivalent of stealing a loaf of bread and then sharing the crumbs.

On May 10, the anniversary of the launch of the first Indian movement for independence, a major milestone was crossed in the contemporary movement of freedom from biocolonialism and biopiracy. The European Patent Office (EPO) struck down Patent No. 0436257 B1 jointly held by the U.S. Government and the multinational W.R. Grace as based on the piracy of existing knowledge, and lacking in novelty and inventiveness.

The Patent had been filed by USDA and W.R. Grace on 12 December 1990. On 14 September, 1994, the European Patent Office granted a patent for "A method for controlling fungi on plants comprising contacting the fungi with a neem oil formulation containing 0.1 to 10 of a hydrophobic extracted neem oil which is substantially free of azadirachtin, 0.005 to 50% of emulsifying surfactant, and 0 to 99% water."

The USDA and Grace attorneys tried every argument under the sun to dismiss the case and block the proceedings, including procedural arguments that as an Indian I could not bring a case to the EPO and that the Research Foundation had not separately paid a $2,000 fee.

Our excellent lawyer, Dr. Dolder, who teaches IPR law at the University of Basel in Switzerland, pointed out to the bench that USDA and Grace were not European entities either, and had also not separately paid patent fees for their joint claim. In any case, the part of Indian systems and therefore Indians had a right to challenge the Biopiracy-based European patent in European courts.

The work for the Neem challenge started in 1994 when I first read about the Neem Patents in a journal. We launched the "Neem Campaign" in India, and formed the "Neem Team"—an international network of patent warriors to support our national campaign. For a decade before that, since 1984, after the Bhopal disaster, we had been spreading the use of neem in agriculture as an alternative to hazardous pesticides through a campaign—"No more Bhopals, plant a Neem".

Neem, or Azadirachta indica, has been used for diverse purposes over centuries in India. It has been used in medicine and in agriculture. The neem is mentioned in Indian texts written over 2000 years ago as an air purifier and as a cure for almost all types of human and animal diseases because of its insect- and pest-repellant properties. It is used on every farm, in every house, almost everyday in India. Research has shown that neem extracts can influence nearly 200 species of insects, many of which are resistant to pesticides. A number of neem-based commercial products, including pesticides, medicines and cosmetics, have come on the Indian market in recent years, some of them produced in the small-scale sector, others by medium-sized laboratories. However, there has been no attempt to acquire proprietary ownership of formulae, since, under the 1970 Patent Act of India, agricultural and medicinal products are not patentable.

The combination of the neem’s cultural, medicinal and agricultural values has contributed to its widespread distribution and propagation. More than 50,000 neem trees shelter pilgrims on the way to Mecca. Indians have gifted knowledge about the neem to the entire world. The existence of diverse species and the freedom with which knowledge can be exchanged is best symbolized by the neem.

The neem is therefore referred to as the ‘free tree’ of India. For centuries the western world ignored the neem tree and its properties; the practices of Indian peasants and doctors were not deemed worthy of attention by the majority of British, French and Portuguese colonialists. However, in the last few years, growing opposition to chemical products in the west, in particular to pesticides, has led to a sudden enthusiasm for the pharmaceutical properties of neem. In 1971, U.S. timber importer Robert Larson observed the tree’s usefulness in India and began importing neem seed to his company headquarters in Wisconsin. Over the next decade, he conducted safety and performance tests upon a pesticidal neem extract called Margosan-O, and in 1985 received clearance for the product from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Three years later, he sold the patent for the product to the multinational chemical corporation W.R. Grace. Since 1985, over a dozen U.S. patents have been taken out by U.S. and Japanese firms on formulae for stable neem-based solutions and emulsions and even for a neem-based toothpaste.

Having garnered their patents and with the prospect of a licence from EPA, Grace has set about manufacturing and commercialising their product by establishing a base in India. The company approached several Indian manufacturers with proposals to buy up their technology or to convince them to stop producing value-added products and instead supply the company with raw material. In many cases, W.R. Grace met with a rebuff. Eventually, it managed to arrange a joint venture with a firm called PJ Margo Pvt. Ltd. They have set up a plant in India which processes up to 20 tonnes of seed a day. They are also setting up a network of neem seed suppliers to ensure a constant supply of the seeds at a reliable price. Grace is likely to be followed by other patent-holding companies.

The company’s demand for seed had had three primary effects:

The Neem Victory is a landmark victory which will arrest the flow of the rich biodiversity of the Third World to the rich of the North. It is a victory of people against power, of commons against monopolies, of freedom against slavery. It is significant that the Neem-Azad-Darakt, the Free Tree, should be a symbol of this significant people’s victory.

When TRIPs was forced on countries during the Uruguay Round, many issues of public concern were totally bypassed and the full ethical, ecological and economic implications of patenting life were not discussed. Third World countries were coerced into accepting the western-style IPR system. However, public interest groups showed that these systems were strong to establish corporate monopolies globally, but they were weak to protect indigenous knowledge and prevent biopiracy. They were ‘advanced’ means for taking away the resources of the poor, and stealing the knowledge of our grandmothers. But they were primitive when viewed from the perspective of justice, equality and cross-cultural respect.

As a result of sustained public pressure, after the agreement came into force, in 1995, many Third World countries have made their recommendations for changes in Article 27.3 (b) to prevent biopiracy.

India, in its discussion paper submitted to the TRIPs Council in Geneva, prior to the WTO Third Ministerial Conference at Seattle, stated on patenting of life forms:

Article 71.1 requires that in the year 2000 the implementation of TRIPs itself be reviewed, and if necessary, the TRIPs Agreement itself be amended in the light of any relevant new developments which might warrant its modification or amendment.

The African countries and the Central American countries are consistently demanding a TRIPs review, which is being delayed and denied by the US, which is instead putting pressure on the countries for the implementation of TRIPs. The African and Central American countries have also demanded, in their position paper to the WTO, a five-year delay in the implementation of TRIPs. In early 1999, the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, a leading research group in India, has also demanded a five-year freeze of the TRIPs Agreement.

As a Third World country, India’s interest lies in working with other developing countries to change the IPR systems being globalised through TRIPs, which is biased in favour of the rich industrialised countries and global corporations. Since changing TRIPs is part of our right, there is absolutely no justification for implementing it in its present form.

A next major flaw with TRIPs, which is also rooted in using U.S. Patent as the model law, is the introduction of patents on life forms through Article 27.3 (b). This Article was supposed to be reviewed during the last WTO Seattle Ministerial Conference.

Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Peru have made a proposal on the Protection of the Intellectual Property Rights relating to the Traditional Knowledge of local and indigenous communities. This paper states: "The entire modern evolution of intellectual property has been framed by principles and systems which have tended to leave aside a large sector of human creativity, namely the traditional knowledge possessed by local and indigenous communities."

The group proposed that negotiations be initiated at the WTO Third Ministerial Conference at Seattle, with the view to establishing a multilateral legal framework that will grant effective protection to the expressions and manifestations of tradition knowledge. The entire African group has also called for systems to protect traditional knowledge.

The African group, represented through the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), has also proposed that a footnote should be inserted to Article 27.3 (b), stating that any sui generis law for plant variety protection can provide for the protection of the innovations of indigenous and local farming communities in developing countries, consistent with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources.

In spite of all of the African region, five countries in Central and Latin America and India calling for changes in 278.3 (b) on the basis of their right to a review as built into the Agreement, the U.S. and Europe are determined to block the reform of TRIPs and any attempt to stop biopiracy. In a "Green room" consultation (the undemocratic structure of decision-making in the WTO) the powerful industrialised countries told Mike Moore, the Director General that they rejected all the proposals for the reform of TRIPs.

The African group and India have also called for the exclusion of life forms from patentability and for the WTO to be subordinate to Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In fact, India has pleaded in its discussion paper that the implementation of obligation under the CBD and that a system which ensures the protection of the environment, promotes food security, health security and also farmers’ rights, should not be considered as a dilution of obligations under the TRIPs.

The U.S. and Europe have rejected the developing countries’ proposals related to 27.3 (b) on grounds that the WTO cannot be subordinated to other international agreements, which confirms the belief of the environment movement that in the WTO issues of the environment are always sacrificed for trade. The Northern countries have, however, been put on the defensive in TRIPs as a result of the health movement against patents.

Brazil is a country that has made the most progress in producing low-cost AIDS medicines. Brazil provides AIDS therapy for US$192 pr month. Starting in 1994, the Brazilian government urged local companies to start making drugs to treat AIDS. The government invoked ‘national emergency’ provisions in its patent laws to start manufacturing low cost anti-retrovirals such as AZT. Brazil makes eight of the twelve drugs used in the so-called AIDS cocktail. As a result, prices have gone down by more than 70 per cent. The availability of cheaper drugs has enabled the Brazilian government to provide anti-retrovirals to more than 80,000 citizens by the end of 1999, which has led to a more than 50 per cent drop in AIDS related morality between 1996 and 1999. This has also allowed the government to save US$472 million in hospitalizations.

However, instead of applauding Brazil for its success in fighting AIDS through generic drug production supported under the 1997 Patent Law and making this kind of law a model, the U.S. has taken Brazil to the WTO dispute panel in order to force Brazil to undo its patent laws. If US patent monopolies are globalized through TRIPs as a result of being allowed to undo Brazil’s patent laws, then millions of AIDS victims in the Third World will be denied affordable treatment and thus their right to life. The pressure of social movements and Third World governments resistance forced the U.S. to withdraw its dispute against Brazil.

For the first time, a number of developing countries including the African Group, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Pakistan, Paraguay, the Philippines, Peru, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Venezuela submitted a joint paper to the TRIPs Council on TRIPs and Health. TRIPs, which was aimed at undoing the national sovereign legislations of countries to create corporate monopolies over seeds and medicines, was now being jointly challenged. TRIPs had put profits before survival, corporations before citizens.

The citizens’ movements against TRIPs had empowered Third World governments to demand that the WTO take such action as will ensure that the TRIPs agreement does not in any way undermine the legitimate right of WTO members to formulate their own public health policies and implement them by adopting measures to protect public health (Ref: TRIPs Council discussion on Access to Medicines IP/C/W/296 WTO). Where TRIPs interferes in ensuring public health, the developing country members have called for changes in the provisions. The reform and review of TRIPs can now no longer be scuttled by the powerful.

Food and health are basic to survival, and biodiversity and knowledge are central to both. The globalisation agenda, driven solely by corporate interests, had attempted to use the TRIPs agreement of the WTO and western-style IPR regimes to appropriate the vital biodiversity resources of the poor, and transform seeds, plants and medicines from sources of sustenance for people into sources of limitless profits for global corporations.

However, a decade of movements and struggles against biopiracy and TRIPs have now started to have an impact. These movements are about both the rights of communities to be producers of knowledge, food and medicine, and the rights of citizens to have access to basic needs. They are, by their very nature, pluralistic in content and form, but they share some basic principles which include:

The biodiversity and IPR struggles thus cut across issue-based movements and provide an integrating perspective for people’s rights. These struggles also move us to a location to define a post-globalisation agenda. Globalisation was in effect the takeover of people’s spaces by corporations with the participation of states.

The anti-biopiracy and anti-TRIPs movements have problematised the role of the state, and destabilised the power of corporations. Through the right to seed and the right to medicine, the popular movements have forced states to push back the power of the biotech agribusiness and pharmaceutical giants and the G-8 countries. The withdrawal of the case by pharmaceutical corporations against South Africa, and the withdrawal of the U.S. dispute against Brazil in the case of producing affordable AIDS medicines are new directions in the politics of IPRs.

The movements against biopiracy and against TRIPs have also shaped a new pluralistic politics, a rainbow politics, that has the generosity and inclusivity of place for indigenous struggles and defense of local sovereignty as well as movements for basic needs and the defense of national sovereignty. Where people can meet their own needs using local resources and indigenous resources, neither states nor corporations should interfere in their autonomy and freedom. Where people’s capacity for self provisioning for food and medicine has been undermined by historical processes, national systems have an obligation to ensure rights to basic needs are protected and access to affordable food and medicine is guaranteed. Global corporations and global institutions like the WTO cannot have the right to prevent states from fulfilling their obligations to their citizens, or recognising the sovereignty of their local communities. National sovereignty is thus a derived concept and rests on local sovereignty. It does not give the national state the power to undermine local structures but only the duty to defend the freedom of peoples and the obligation to meet peoples basic needs.

This pluralistic politics also implies that diversity of species, diversity of knowledge systems, diversity of economic systems, can flourish side by side. In place of the hegemonic relationship of the North with the South, corporations with citizens, humans with other species, the global with the local, the modern with the traditional, a politics emerging from biodiversity struggles creates a context of cooperation and mutuality, equality and ecological sustainability.

In the final analysis, the biodiversity movement is a movement that recognises the value of every species, every person, every culture, every community, every country on its own terms, not on the hegemonic calculus of piracy, profits and predation.

Enyart, James (1990), "A GATT Intellectual Property Code," Less Nouvelles (June): 54-56.