Summary
1. Introduction: Food Security and Innovation. 2. International Intellectual Property Law and Food Innovation. 2.1 The TRIPS Agreement. 2.2 Applicable Norms to Sui Generis Regimes. 2.3 The WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge. 3. Human Rights Protection and Food Innovation. 3.1 The Right to Food. 3.2 The Right to Science. 4. Conclusion: (the Need for) Innovating the Law-Making Agenda.
1 Introduction: Food Security and Innovation
Food security is defined as a state in which all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.1
According to the annual report titled ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World’ (SOFI Report):
[T]he reverse in progress and the persistently high levels of hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition in recent years have put the world off track to meet Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Targets 2.1 and 2.2—to end hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition by 2030.2
In terms of numbers, between 713 and 757 million people (8.9 and 9.4% of the global population, respectively) were estimated to have been undernourished in 2023 and about 152 million more people faced hunger in 2023 compared to 2019.3
Scientific and biotechnological innovation in this domain have the potential to enhance crop management and productivity, increase yields, adapt food production to the effects of climate change, and develop early warning systems to safeguard land, crops, and food production.4
The overarching objectives of this transformation are twofold: to enhance food accessibility and to improve nutritional outcomes. The aim is to contribute to the effective implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,5 which emphasises the role of technology as a fundamental enabler to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG s).6
From an international law perspective, innovation can present numerous legal challenges. Indeed, normative conflicts may emerge among different legal regimes. For example, the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime imposes financial fees for the utilisation of inventions based on plant genetic resources, which can result in a detrimental impact on the ability of the most vulnerable populations to access food, particularly in developing and least developed countries (LDC s).7
Conversely, the international protection of human rights promotes economic and technological collaboration among States in part to safeguard and ensure the right to access to adequate and available food.
The main challenge regards the protection of traditional knowledge (TK) of indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLC s)—the cultivation, conservation, use, and application of natural resources—from commercialisation by the biotechnology industry of genetic resources from plants, animals, and micro-organisms. If a private actor, such as a multinational company, can appropriate TK through patents, this could lead to an increase in the cost of seeds, and thus a reduction in their availability to farmers and those peoples whose economies and livelihoods are largely based on agriculture. This can drive the erosion of biological diversity at all levels—genetic, species, and ecosystem. Several studies dealing with IPLC s highlight not only a decline in the transmission of ancestral knowledge,8 but also a shift in dietary habits towards cheap and low-nutrient alternatives that has led to a rise in malnutrition and food insecurity.9
Against this backdrop, the present chapter provides an overview of the international norms governing both IPR and the protection of human rights—and the normative tensions between them. Methodologically, this paper does not address international jurisprudence on this issue, due to limitations in available length. The paper concludes with possible legal developments, emphasising potential synergies and the complementarity between the two regimes.
2 International Intellectual Property Law and Food Innovation
The legal instrument providing for international binding rules with respect to IPR is the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement). Adopted in 1994 under the umbrella of the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organisation (WTO), today TRIPS counts 166 States parties.10
The rationale of the TRIPS Agreement is to regulate exclusive IP rights, pertaining to inventors of patentable goods. These rights are typically considered by States to be an incentive to facilitate innovation and technology transfer, which ultimately benefits producers and users alike.
As will be illustrated below, additional international instruments are involved when laying down a specific legal framework protecting intellectual property rights over resources essential for innovation in the food sector.
2.1 The TRIPS Agreement
The international protection of IPR is primarily achieved through the granting of patents to an invention in any field of technology, whether a product or a process. For a patent to be granted in accordance with TRIPS, the invention must be novel, involve an inventive step and be capable of industrial application. Patent holders are entitled to the right to grant licenses for the utilisation of their invention to third parties11 in order to prevent third parties not having the owner’s consent from making, using, offering for sale, selling, or importing for these purposes that product.12
As set forth in Articles 7 and 8 of the TRIPS Agreement, which inform the interpretation of the treaty, such guarantee is afforded with a view to promoting social and economic welfare, protecting public health, and advancing the public interest in vital areas, such as nutrition.13
To achieve these objectives, under certain circumstances, exclusive rights may be limited or suspended on the grounds of the legitimate interests of third parties. States parties to TRIPS may suspend patents and grant compulsory licenses for the use of the patent without the authorisation of the patent holder. These limitations should not unduly impede the normal exploitation of the patent and must not prejudice the legitimate interests of the patent owner. According to Article 31, a waiver may be granted in the event of a national emergency or extreme urgency, for non-commercial public use or the supply of the domestic market, provided that specific procedural and substantive conditions are met.14 In any case, the patent holder is entitled to receive an economic fee (‘royalty’).
Specific attention has been paid to the circumstances of WTO Member States with inadequate or no manufacturing capabilities (Least Developed Countries, or LDC s). The TRIPS Agreement provides for a general waiver for LDC s (except for Articles 3, 4, and 5),15 for a period of ten years, which may be extended by a special decision of the TRIPS Council. Moreover, according to Article 66, paragraph 2, industrialised States parties to the Agreement are required to provide incentives to their enterprises and institutions to facilitate technology transfer to LDC Members.16 In the same vein, States parties are required to fulfil obligations pertaining to technical and financial cooperation in favor of LDC Members.
The specific legal framework governing innovations in the field of agrifood systems is a bit more complex. Article 27 of the TRIPS Agreement provides that States may exclude the patentability of inventions whose commercial exploitation is necessary to protect ordre public or morality,17 including to protect human or animal life or environmental health. For this reason, ‘plants and animals other than micro-organisms, and essentially biological processes for the production of plants or animals other than non-biological and microbiological processes’ can be excluded from patentability.18 However, States parties shall provide for ‘plant genetic resources’ protection ‘either by patents or by an effective sui generis system or by any combination thereof’.19
These norms pose some challenges to the TK of IPLC s, ie the methods employed in the conservation, utilisation, and processing of natural resources to produce basic goods for the communities concerned, such as food, medicines, and cultural products.20
While intellectual property rights are individual and private, the concept of TK refers to collective ancestral know-how, orally transmitted through generations. This means that TK lacks the essential element of being novel. Nonetheless, TK should be protected due to the essential role it plays in the daily lives of IPLC s.
The challenges posed by traditional IP governance and the lack of appropriate legal protection for TK may indeed raise various concerns.21 First, the commercialisation of natural resources has the potential to accelerate the loss of biodiversity by increasing monoculture crops that erode the diversity of landraces, or traditional crop varieties. Second, the commodification of food products can diminish accessibility to food, owing to the considerable costs associated with patent rights. Third, and consequently, the consumption of low-priced and unhealthy food results in an increase in malnutrition.22
A sui generis regime, thus, represents a practical legal solution for balancing competing interests and facilitating the harmonisation of various elements, including IPR, TK, biodiversity, and food security.
2.2 Applicable Norms to Sui Generis Regimes
The implementation of a sui generis regime for patents or ‘any other combination’23 means the establishment of a system based on other international instruments which provide for the protection of plant varieties and their genetic resources, the essential material for both farmers and plant breeders, namely those who professionally breed, discover, or develop plant varieties.24
A specific regime for the protection of plant breeders is set out in the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV).25 Since its adoption in 1978, UPOV has sought to achieve a balance between the rights of plant breeders to produce and sell plant varieties and the rights of farmers and researchers to utilise them. The act’s efficacy, which did not address any concern related to food (in)security,26 was downgraded due to the lack of a broad membership.27 For this reason, the UPOV Act was revised in 1991.28
In accordance with the actual provisions, a plant’s eligibility for protection is contingent on the fulfilment of specific criteria. Primarily, the plant variety must demonstrate novelty, distinctness, uniformity, and stability.29 This protection requires those seeking to utilise reproductive or vegetative propagating material of the plant variety for the purpose of production or reproduction; conditioning for the purpose of propagation; offering for sale; selling or marketing; exporting; importing; and stocking for any of these purposes to obtain prior authorisation from the designated breeder.30 However, this protection risks facilitating the role of the breeder, but limiting the rights of farmers.
There are a limited number of exceptions to the general rule, pertaining to the private, non-commercial activities of individuals; acts performed for research and experimental purposes within the appropriate scientific context; and so-called ‘farmers’ privilege’31—the permission granted to farmers to utilise the product of their harvest for propagating purposes on the condition that the protected variety in question has been obtained through planting on their own holdings.32
Some authors criticise the approach of the UPOV Acts, since they encourage crop monocultures without safeguarding agricultural biodiversity.33 Furthermore, the privilege does not provide farmers with the authorisation needed to engage in the sale or exchange of seeds with other farmers for the purpose of propagating new varieties.34 Such provisions, again, risk having a detrimental impact on developing countries, where a large proportion of the population depends on agriculture for employment and income, thus multiplying inequalities.35
Alternatively, States may decide to base their systems on the 2001 FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), which today counts 152 Contracting Parties.36 The ITPGRFA imposes obligations on States concerning the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources, with a view to ensuring sustainable agriculture and food security.37
The negotiation process for ITPGRFA took place after the Conference for the Adoption of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).38 In this context, States parties agreed to undertake a comprehensive review of the existing non-binding FAO International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources (IU)39 to explore means to develop complementarity and cooperation between these legal instruments.40
The harmonisation between the CBD and the ITPGRFA ensures—or at least should ensure—the protection of agricultural biodiversity, TK, and farmers’ rights. With regard to conservation of natural resources, the CBD provides that each States party shall:
[R]espect, preserve, and maintain knowledge, innovations, and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and promote their wider application with the approval and involvement of the holders of such knowledge, innovations, and practices and encourage the equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilisation of such knowledge, innovations, and practices.41
The ITPGRFA does not provide an exhaustive list of the relevant rights of farmers. Article 9 refers to three objectives that governments should achieve: (a) the protection of traditional knowledge relevant to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture; (b) the right to equitably participate in sharing benefits arising from the utilisation of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture; and (c) the right to participate in making decisions, at the national level, on matters related to the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture.42 Moreover, the last paragraph of Article 9 provides that ‘[n]othing in this Article shall be interpreted to limit any rights that farmers have to save, use, exchange, and sell farm-saved seed/propagating material, subject to national law and as appropriate’.43
The ITPGRFA imposes obligations on States to balance the right to access and control genetic resources with their sovereign rights over natural resources.44 At the same time, a reading consistent with the CBD entails the implementation of the international tools provided thereby for the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilisation of genetic resources.45 To this end, the ITPGRFA aims to establish a Multilateral System (MS) which lists crops and forages to be made available to all countries for the purpose of utilisation and conservation for research, breeding, and training for food and agriculture, and/or other non-food/feed industrial uses, free of charge.46 Moreover, according to Article 13:
[B]enefits arising from the use, including commercial, of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture under the Multilateral System shall be shared fairly and equitably through the following mechanisms: the exchange of information, access to and transfer of technology, capacity-building, and the sharing of the benefits arising from commercialisation.47
Article 12 also provides that ‘[r]ecipients shall not claim any intellectual property or other rights that limit the facilitated access to the plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, or their genetic parts or components, in the form received from the Multilateral System’.48 Additionally, the ITPGRFA requires that:
[A] recipient who commercialises a product that is a plant genetic resource for food and agriculture and that incorporates material accessed from the Multilateral System, shall pay to [an appropriate mechanism, such as a Trust Account] an equitable share of the benefits arising from the commercialisation of that product, except whenever such a product is available without restriction to others for further research and breeding, in which case the recipient who commercialises shall be encouraged to make such payment.49
Consequently, the provisions of the ITPGRFA may be considered incompatible or conflicting with TRIPS, which require Members to ensure that patents are available, and patent rights are enjoyed without discrimination in all fields of technology.50
To effectively balance all the variables associated with food innovation, alternative solutions have been proposed at both the national and international level.
On the one hand, domestic legislation has combined rights and duties deriving from the international instruments illustrated above by establishing different flexibilities and incentives for technological innovation.51 For instance, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) has drafted model legislation entitled ‘African Model Legislation for the Protection of the Rights of Local Communities, Farmers and Breeders, and for the Regulation of Access to Biological Resources’.52 This model legislation encourages the full participation and approval of the IPLC s concerned in the development of contracts regulating the collection of biological resources.53
The need to balance intellectual property rights and access to genetic resources has been discussed internationally, even by the WTO. In this sense, in the Ministerial Declaration adopted at the end of the 2001 ‘Doha Round’, Member States instructed the Council for TRIPS to include in its agenda:
[T]he review of Article 27, para 3, letter (b), the review of the implementation of the TRIPS Agreement under Article 71, para 1, and the work foreseen pursuant to paragraph 12 of this declaration, to examine, inter alia, the relationship between the TRIPS Agreement and the CBD, the protection of TK, folklore, and other relevant new developments.54
Notwithstanding this request, the review of Article 27 has not yet been undertaken by the TRIPS Parties. However, an innovative proposal has been developed under the auspices of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).
2.3 The WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources, and Associated Traditional Knowledge
In May 2024—after more than twenty years of negotiations—WIPO Member States adopted the Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources, and Associated Traditional Knowledge (WIPO Treaty), a unique treaty dedicated to IP, TK, and folklore.55 The WIPO Treaty, which entered into force after fifteen ratifications, regulates a new international disclosure requirement for patent applicants whose inventions are based on genetic resources and/or associated TK.
According to the new treaty, States parties have a duty to disclose pertinent information in instances where a patent application pertains to an invention that is derived from genetic resources or traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources. This disclosure requirement encompasses the following elements: the country of origin of the genetic resources in question; the specific source of these resources; the indigenous peoples or local community associated with these resources; and the origin of the traditional knowledge associated with the genetic resources.56
In the event of the requisite information not being disclosed, appropriate, effective, and proportionate, sanctioning measures will be implemented. Patent applicants will be afforded the opportunity to rectify a failure to disclose the required information, unless fraudulent conduct or intent can be demonstrated.57
The introduction of these preconditions represents a significant international achievement in IP law, given the pivotal role that natural resources and traditional knowledge play in food production within indigenous communities. While the introduction of a specific protection regime related to the intangible heritage of indigenous people is a laudable result, the threshold of disclosure required is considered relatively low.58 For instance, if the applicant is unaware of the IPLC or the TK’s source, the applicant can ‘make a declaration to that effect, affirming that the content of the declaration is true and correct to the best knowledge of the applicant’.59 In conclusion, it remains unclear whether the actual system, which is complex and not harmonised, is adequate to ensure respect for the right to food access and other fundamental human rights.
3 Human Rights Protection and Food Innovation
International legal instruments governing IP rights have been criticised for establishing norms that are often perceived to conflict with the protection of human rights.60 The economic burden on developing countries deriving from IP regimes on genetic resources and plant varieties have the potential to hinder the realisation of the right to adequate food. Furthermore, restrictions on access to and transfer of technology can impact the ability of the most vulnerable people and farmers to improve their livelihoods.61
The norms provided for by the two distinct regimes, if read as working towards the shared objective of establishing food security, can lead to an alternative international solution to the challenges posed by intellectual property protection.
For this purpose, it is crucial to grasp the essence of some fundamental rights, namely the right to access to food and right to science.
3.1 The Right to Food
Since the adoption of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (the Covenant or ICESCR),62 the right to food, provided for in Article 11, represents a cornerstone of the international human rights system, and nowadays its content is consolidated in international customary law.63 According to this provision, the right to food has two dimensions: the right to an adequate, available, and accessible level of food, and the ‘fundamental’ right to be free from hunger.64
As interpretated by the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ESCR Committee or CESCR) in its 1999 General Comment No. 12 on the right to food, this right is primarily concerned with two central aspects. On the one hand, the availability of food in sufficient quantity and quality to meet the nutritional needs of individuals, and on the other, accessibility, in the physical and economic sense, such that it does not interfere with the enjoyment of other rights.65 The ESCR Committee also affirms that the right to food must be guaranteed in accordance with the requirements of adequacy and sustainability, which apply to both the characteristics of food and the obligations of States parties in realising this right.66
The notion of adequacy depends on a number of factors, such as prevailing social, economic, cultural, climatic, and environmental conditions.67 The requirement of sustainability, as interpreted by the CESCR, concerns the long-term availability of food, ie its accessibility for present and future generations.68 In line with the concept of sustainability developed in international law since the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, this characteristic implies that States parties to the Covenant shall implement food policies that ensure the most sustainable management and use of natural and other resources for food, at the national, regional, local, and household levels.
The norms set forth by the ICESCR are programmatic.69 This signifies that States parties are obliged to guarantee at least the ‘minimum core obligation’—namely freedom from hunger—and to adopt all appropriate measures to guarantee its progressive realisation and non-regression. This may be achieved through the adoption of appropriate domestic measures at the legislative, administrative, and judicial levels, as well as through the development of targeted strategies. States parties to the ICESCR, thus, bear the duty to create the conditions that facilitate the implementation of the obligations deriving from the right to food. This includes regulating the conduct of private actors, adopting national measures and strategies that ensure the food and nutritional security of every individual, and establishing monitoring mechanisms and judicial or other remedies to seek redress in case of a human rights violation.
It is worth noting that Article 11 also explicitly defines the duties of States in relation to the fundamental right to be ‘free from hunger’. This provision specifies that these duties consist of improving methods of food production, preservation, and distribution, making full use of technical and scientific knowledge, disseminating information on nutritional principles, and developing or reforming agrarian systems to ensure the most efficient use of natural resources. States parties to the ICESCR, thus, should adopt measures aimed at the production, conservation, and distribution of food, taking into consideration ‘the problems of both food-importing and food-exporting countries, to ensure an equitable distribution of world food supplies in relation to need’.70
Against this background, the ESCR Committee argued that the Parties shall recognise the essential role of international cooperation and that in order to achieve the full realisation of the right to adequate food, it is incumbent on them to take measures to ensure the enjoyment of this right in other countries as well.71 States parties, thus, shall refrain from restricting food products in a manner that endangers food production and access to food in other countries, and to provide food aid in a manner that does not adversely affect local producers and markets and facilitates the food self-sufficiency of beneficiaries.
This wording reiterates what was foreseen in the 1990 General Comment No.3 on the obligations of States parties to the Covenant. More precisely, the Committee argued that in accordance with established principles of international law, international cooperation on the realisation of economic, social, and cultural rights is an obligation of all Parties, particularly of those States in a position to assist others to that end.72
Against this background, it proves challenging to reconcile the prerogatives of the right to food with the elevated costs associated with patented food technologies which should serve as instruments for international technical and economic cooperation to facilitate the realisation of the right, especially in developing countries.
3.2 The Right to Science
Within the context of the rights enshrined in the Covenant, the right to benefit from scientific progress and its applications is particularly salient to this research.73 When read in conjunction with Article 27 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR or the Universal Declaration), the ‘right to science’ also includes the right to enjoy and share scientific advancement and its benefits.74
In addition, as confirmed within the travaux preparatoires of the Universal Declaration, the term ‘share’ here is understood to signify ‘participate’.75 Consequently, the right to science is also considered to encompass a participatory dimension.76
The right to science is understood to cover both natural and social sciences, the processes and methodologies employed, and the outcomes of these processes and their tangible results, or ‘benefits’.77
The Committee has further elucidated the normative content of the right, stressing the following elements:
(a) access to the benefits of science by everyone, without discrimination; (b) opportunities for all to contribute to the scientific enterprise and freedom indispensable for scientific research; (c) participation of individuals and communities in decision-making; and (d) an enabling environment fostering the conservation, development, and diffusion of science and technology.78
According to the ICESCR, States parties have a duty to undertake measures to the maximum extent of their available resources to ensure the full realisation of the right to science. This right is to be achieved in a progressive manner, without the adoption of regressive or discriminatory measures.79
This right to science is inextricably linked to other economic, social, and cultural rights, the realisation and enjoyment of which are significantly reliant on scientific progress80—the right to food in particular.81 As emphasised in the Venice Statement on the Right to Enjoy the Benefits of Scientific Progress and its Applications, adopted in 2009 by a group of experts convened by UNESCO:
[I]n the area of food production, although scientific advances have significantly increased crop yields, they may also reduce crop genetic diversity, widen the gap between poor farmers and large-scale producers, and thus affect the right to food.82
For this reason, IP rights have been recognised as a distinct challenge to the right to science. CESCR has addressed this topic in General Comment No. 25 on science and economic, social, and cultural rights,83 where it stressed that the interaction between private scientific research and IP has substantial influence on the right to science. While IP norms offer incentives for innovation through mechanisms such as patents, they can also impede scientific advancement and equitable access. This is achieved, for instance, by distorting research funding towards profitable projects, restricting information sharing through IP regulations, and creating barriers to accessing essential products due to high costs set by patent holders.84 Furthermore, States should strive to find a balance between the protection of intellectual property rights and the promotion of open access and the sharing of scientific knowledge, in accordance with international human rights obligations.85 Finally, the Committee emphasised that:
[I]ntellectual property is a social product and has a social function and consequently, States parties have a duty to prevent unreasonably high costs for access to essential medicines, plant seeds, or other means of food production, or for schoolbooks and learning materials, from undermining the rights of large segments of the population to health, food, and education.86
In a similar vein, the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, following an earlier examination of the connection between the right to science and IP rights,87 dedicated a report to the implications of patent policy on the human right to science and culture.88 From the human rights perspective, it is vital to consider the social function and human dimension of intellectual property, as well as the public interests involved, when discussing patents. In her opinion, these themes are often overlooked when patents are discussed in terms of trade, as in the TRIPS Agreement.
The obligations of States under IP treaties must not jeopardise the implementation of their obligations under human rights treaties.89 Patent laws should impose no limitations on the rights to health, food, science, and culture, unless the State can demonstrate that the limitation pursues a legitimate aim, is compatible with the nature of these rights, and is strictly necessary for the promotion of general welfare.90 Furthermore, the Special Rapporteur emphasised that international norms governing plant variety should not impede the right of farmers to utilise, conserve, exchange, and commercialise farm-saved seeds, and that engaging in experimentation, notably within local contexts, should continue.91
4 Conclusion: (the Need for) Innovating the Law-Making Agenda
A thorough analysis of the present state of the agrifood sector and its impact on human life reveals certain inadequacies in the existing legal context which necessitate further international efforts to address them.92
International law provides for legal instruments that protect the individual right to food through international States’ obligations to ensure effective access to food to their populations and, in particular, for the most vulnerable. Nevertheless, international IP norms may impede the advancement of such protections for two different consequential reasons.
Technology can play a key role as a driver of international norm change93 with the aim of achieving a better balance between the protection of the IP of food innovations and the protection of human rights. To this end, some hypotheses could be further explored both in research activities and in the promotion of future international law-making activities.
On the one hand, the time may be ripe to undertake a revision of the requirements provided for by Article 27(3)(b) for excluding certain innovations from patentability. Indeed, rather than proposing the termination of the TRIPS Agreement, as some prominent scholars have suggested,94 and which is typically considered ‘necessary and impossible’,95 an amending procedure could prove more fruitful.
According to the requirement provided for by Article 71, ‘[t]he [TRIPS] Council may also undertake reviews in the light of any relevant new developments which might warrant modification or amendment of this Agreement’. The current challenges threatening food security, sustainable development, biodiversity conservation, climate change, and the protection of human rights could be considered a ‘relevant new development’ that may warrant a modification to Article 27. As other authors have observed, the preservation and exploitation of TRIPS flexibilities should be recommended when the intellectual property system presents impediments for the eradication of hunger.96
In 1998, States parties to TRIPS commenced discussions regarding the potential for a review of the exclusion from patentability of plants and animal inventions. This need has been reflected in different proposals, particularly by developing countries, in different fora within the WTO.97
Nevertheless, as the debate surrounding IP of technology and food is inextricably linked to that of effective human rights protection, a multilateral discourse between the relevant international organisations may prove more appropriate.
On the other hand, sui generis regimes allow for the incorporation of any measures deemed essential for the advancement of specific objectives, including those regarding food security.98 Therefore, relevant amendments to domestic legislation should be considered, with a view to integrating concerns around food security into the existing domestic legislation. A comprehensive approach should also be adopted to achieve an up-to-date integration of specific norms that balance IP rights and human rights obligations. This implies that further development should not be restricted to considering only the right to adequate food; rather, it should be expanded to encompass the protection of other rights concerned, such as the right to access scientific innovation, and even the emerging right to seeds.99 The strengthening of protection of the rights of farmers has proved to balance the incentives for innovation for professional plant breeders and the reward to farmers for their role in the preservation of plant resources.100 In other worlds, human rights can offer a fertile ground for restoring a balance in IP law,101 and for this reason distinguished scholars consider the development of norms within non-traditional fora as a possible, effective long-term strategy to contribute to making the IP regime more equitable.102
In conclusion, with respect to the discretionary authority granted by Article 27 for the sui generis option, the harmonisation of national legislation, rather than the establishment of competing systems for the protection of heterogeneous and non-global objectives is a desirable option.
More generally, it is crucial to reiterate that ‘[a]chieving food security and nutrition goals is not only good for those suffering from food insecurity and malnutrition, it is good for everyone. A healthier, more just and equal world is better for all’.103
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Saul B, Kinley D and Mowbray J, The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Commentary, Cases and Materials (OUP 2014).
Seatzu F, ‘The day after no tomorrow?: the right to seeds as a new and distinct human right?’ (2024) 4 Federalismi.it 215.
Sepúlveda Carmona MM, The Nature of the Obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Intersentia 2003).
Schabas WA, ‘Looking Back: How the Founders Considered Science and Progress in Their Relation to Human Rights’ [2015] European Journal of Human Rights 504.
Schabas WA, The Customary International Law of Human Rights (OUP 2021).
Schwindenhammer S, ‘The Future We Want? Interlinking Global Sustainability Norm Change, Technology Innovation, and Regime Complexity’ in Krieger H and Liese A, Tracing Value Change in the International Legal Order. Perspectives from Legal and Political Science (OUP 2023).
Shaver L, ‘The Right to Science and Culture’ [2010] Wisconsin Law Review 121.
Söllner S, ‘The “Breakthrough” of the Right to Food: The Meaning of General Comment No.12 and the Voluntary Guidelines for the Interpretation of the Human Right to Food’ (2007) 11 Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law 391.
Stilwell MT, ‘Review of Article 27.3(b)’ (CIEL 2021).
Sun H, ‘The Road to Doha and Beyond: Some Reflections on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health’ (2004) 15 European Journal of International Law 123.
Thambisetty S, ‘Termination of the TRIPS Agreement: Necessary and Impossible’ (2023) Opinio Juris, <https://opiniojuris.org/2023/01/11/termination-of-the-trips-agreement-necessary-and-impossible/>, accessed 30 May 2025.
Tsioumani E, Fair and Equitable Benefit-Sharing in Agriculture. Reinventing Agrarian Justice (Routledge 2021).
Wong T and Dutfield G (eds), Intellectual Property and Human Development. Current Trends and Future Scenarios (CUP 2010).
FAO World Food Summit, Rome Declaration on World Food Security, Rome 13 November 1996.
FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024. Financing to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms (Rome 2024), 1.
ibid 8,14.
See for instance UNCTAD, The role of science, technology and innovation in ensuring food security by 2030 (New York and Geneva 2017), 11–20; Rui Benfica and others, ‘Food System Innovations and Digital Technologies to Foster Productivity Growth and Rural Transformation’ in Joachim von Braun and others (eds), Science and Innovations for Food Systems Transformation (Springer 2023).
FAO, Introducing the Agrifood Systems Technologies and Innovations Outlook (Rome 2022), 1.
UN Interagency Task Team on Science, Technology and Innovation for the SDG s (IATT), Science, Technology and Innovation for the SDG s Roadmaps—Framework and Working Method (2018) <https://sdgs.un.org/documents/policy-brief-1-science-technology-and-innovation-sdgs-roadmaps-framework-and-working> accessed 24 June 2025.
Philippe Cullet, ‘Intellectual Property Rights and Food Security in the South’ (2004) 7 Journal of World Intellectual Property 261.
International Development Research Centre, ‘Valuing Indigenous knowledge for climate- resilient food systems’ (IDRC·CRDI, 2 June 2023) <https://idrc-crdi.ca/en/research-in-action/valuing-indigenous-knowledge-climate-resilient-food-systems> accessed 23 June 2025.
For instance, the Ecuador National Institute of Statistic in 2018 found that 39% of Indigenous children were chronically malnourished, compared with a national average of 27%. See Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos—Encuesta Nacional de Salud, Salud Reproductiva y Nutrición (ENSANUT) (2018).
WTO, Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, Marrakesh 15 April 1994.
ibid art 27, para 1.
ibid art 28.
ibid arts 7–8, para 1.
ibid art 31, letters from (a) to (k). Article 31 provides for a non-exhaustive list of grounds for excluding patentability, since the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health explicitly mentions public health crises and epidemics as falling within the situations of ‘national emergency or extreme urgency’, these exceptions have been increasingly discussed in relation to health and, in particular, to the production and distribution of medicines, diagnostics, and vaccinations. See Justin Malbon, Charles Lawson and Mark Davison, The WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. A Commentary (Elgar 2014), 499; Carlos M Correa, Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights: A Commentary on the TRIPS Agreement (2nd edn, OUP 2020), 306. With regard to health see, among others, Frederick M Abbott, ‘The Trips-Legality of Measures Taken to Address Public Health Crises: A Synopsis’ (2001) 7 Widener Law Symposium Journal 71; id, ‘The Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health: Lighting a Dark Corner at the WTO’ (2002) 5 Journal of International Economic Law 469; Haochen Sun, ‘The Road to Doha and Beyond: Some Reflections on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health’ (2004) 15 European Journal of International Law 123; Wenwei Guan, ‘IPR s, Public Health, and International Trade: An International Law Perspective on the TRIPS Amendment’ (2016) 29 Leiden Journal of International Law 411.
Articles 3, 4, and 5 of the TRIPS deal, respectively, with the principle of national treatment, the most-favoured-nation treatment principle, and a clause concerning the relation between multilateral agreements on acquisition or maintenance of protection.
TRIPS (n 10), art 66, paras 1–2.
On the definition of ‘ordre public and morality’ see Malbon, Lawson, and Davison (n 14), 430; Correa (n 14), 279.
TRIPS, art 27, para 3, letter. (b).
ibid.
A considerable number of cases involving a wide range of plant species have been documented over the years, such as those concerning, namely, neem trees, turmeric, ayahuasca, hoodia cactus, katempfe, serendipity berry, and basmati rice. See Naomi Roht-Arriaza, ‘Of Seeds and Shamans: The Appropriation of the Scientific and Technical Knowledge of Indigenous and Local Communities’ (1996) 17 Michigan Journal of International Law 919; Bernard O’Connor, ‘Protecting Traditional Knowledge: An Overview of a Developing Area of Intellectual Property Law’ (2003) 6 Journal of World Intellectual Property 677.
Francis Kariuki, ‘Traditional Governance Institutions and the Holistic Protection of Traditional Knowledge’ in Laura Pineschi (ed), Cultural Heritage, Sustainable Development and Human Rights. Towards an Integrated Approach (Routledge 2024).
UN General Assembly, The right to food, Seed policies and the right to food: enhancing agrobiodiversity and encouraging innovation, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, UN Doc. A/64/170, 23 July 2009.
TRIPS (n 18).
For an overview see Laurence R Helfer, Intellectual Property Rights in Plant Varieties. International Legal Regimes and Policy Options for National Governments (FAO 2004).
The Acts are set down in the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, 2 December 1961, as revised at Geneva on 10 November 1972, on 23 October 1978, and on 19 March 1991 (hereinafter, in note, UPOV Act 1991).
Shelley Edwardson, ‘Reconciling TRIPS and the Right to Food’, in Thomas Cottier, Joost Pauwelyn and Elisabeth Bürgi (eds), Human Rights and International Trade (OUP 2005).
Only 17 of 79 Member States to the UPOV are bound by the 1978 Act. See Laurent Manderieux, ‘Right to Food versus Food Quality and Safety in Plant Variety Protection Regimes’, in Angela Lupone, Carola Ricci, and Andrea Santini (eds), The Right to Safe Food Towards a Global Governance (Giappichelli 2013).
As per January 2025, only 60 states and 2 international organisations (the African Intellectual Property Organisation and the European Union) are bound by the 1991 Act.
UPOV Act 1991, arts 7–9.
ibid art 14.
ibid art 15.
ibid art 15, para 2.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Towards a Balanced ‘Sui Generis’ Plant Variety Regime: Guidelines to Establish a National PVP Law and an Understanding of TRIPS-plus Aspects of Plant Rights (New York 2008).
Dan Leskien, Michael Flitner, Intellectual Property Rights and Plant Genetic Resources: Options for a Sui Generis System (IPGRI 1997).
Graham Dutfield, Intellectual Property, Biogenetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge (Routledge 2004).
FAO, International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Rome 3 November 2001.
ibid, art 1, para 1 states that ‘The objectives of this Treaty are the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of their use, in harmony with the Convention on Biological Diversity, for sustainable agriculture and food security’. See Gerald Moore and Witold Tymowsky, Explanatory Guide to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (IUCN 2005).
UN, Convention on Biological Diversity, Rio de Janeiro 5 June 1992.
FAO, International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources: Resolution 8/83 of the Twenty-second Session of the FAO Conference, Rome 5–23 November1983. The International Undertaking was based on the principle that plant genetic resources are a heritage of mankind and consequently should be available without restriction.
FAO, Nairobi Final Act of the Conference for the Adoption of the Agreed Text of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Resolution 3, The Interrelationship Between the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Promotion of Sustainable Agriculture, Nairobi 22 May 1992, para 2.
CBD, art 8, letter (j).
ITPGRFA, art 9, paras 1–2.
ibid para 3.
Mary Elisabeth Footer, ‘Agricultural Biotechnology, Food Security and Human Rights’ in Francesco Francioni, Tullio Scovazzi, Biotechnology and International Law (Bloomsbury 2006).
This represents one of the main objectives of the CBD, as set out in art 1 and further developed through the Bonn Guidelines and the Nagoya Protocol to the CBD. See Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Bonn Guidelines on Access to Genetic Resources and Fair and Equitable Sharing of the Benefits Arising out of their Utilization (Montreal 2002); UN, Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity (Nagoya 2010). Among scholars see Elisa Morgera, Elsa Tsioumani, and Matthias Buck, Unraveling the Nagoya Protocol: A Commentary of the Protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing to the Convention on Biological Diversity (Brill 2015).
ITPGRFA, art 12, para 3, letters (a) and (b). See Elsa Tsioumani, Fair and Equitable Benefit-Sharing in Agriculture. Reinventing Agrarian Justice (Routledge 2021), 16.
ibid art 13, para 2.
ibid art 12, para 3, letter (d).
ibid art 13, para 2, letter (d).
TRIPS, art 27, para 1. See Helfer (23), 91.
Hans Morten Haugen, Manuel Ruiz Muller, and Savita Mullapudi Narasimhan, ‘Food security and intellectual property rights: Finding linkages’ in Tzen Wong and Graham Dutfield (eds), Intellectual Property and Human Development. Current Trends and Future Scenarios (CUP 2010). For an overview, see UNCTAD, Systems and National Experiences for Protecting Traditional Knowledge, Innovations and Practices, Background Note by the UNCTAD Secretariat, 22 August 2000.
Organisation of African Unity (OAU), African Model Legislation for the Protection of the Rights of Local Communities, Farmers and Breeders, and for the Regulation of Access to Biological Resources, (Algeria 2000), art 22.
ibid.
WTO, Ministerial Declaration, WT/MIN(01)/DEC/1, 14 November 2001, para 19.
WIPO, Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge, 13–24 May 2024. On this topic see Daniel F Robinson, Ahmed Abdel-Latif, and Pedro Roffe (eds), Protecting Traditional Knowledge. The WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (Routledge 2019).
ibid art 3, paras 1 and 2.
ibid art 5.
Ayla do Vale Alves, ‘WIPO’s New Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources, and Traditional Knowledge—A Turning Point for Indigenous Heritage?’ (2024) 13 (11) ESIL Reflections <https://esil-sedi.eu/esil-reflection-wipos-new-treaty-on-intellectual-property-genetic-resources-and-traditional-knowledge-a-turning-point-for-indigenous-heritage/> accessed 23 June 2025.
WIPO, Treaty on Intellectual Property (n 55), Art. 3.3.
Laurence R Helfer, ‘Human Rights and Intellectual Property: Conflict or Co-Existence?’ (2004) 22 Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights 167.
UN, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food (n 22).
UN, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, New York 16 December 1966, art 11.
William A Schabas, The Customary International Law of Human Rights (OUP 2021), 303.
Philip Alston, ‘International Law and the Human Rights to Food’ in Philip Alston, Katarina Tomaševski (eds), The Right to Food (Netherlands Institute of Human Rights 1984).
CESCR, General Comment n°12: The Right to Adequate Food (Art. 11), UN Doc. E/C.12/1999/5, 12 May 1999. See also Sven Söllner, ‘The “Breakthrough” of the Right to Food: The Meaning of General Comment No.12 and the Voluntary Guidelines for the Interpretation of the Human Right to Food’ (2007) 11 Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law 391.
CESCR, General Comment n°12 (n 63), para 8.
Ben Saul, David Kinley and Jacqueline Mowbray, The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Commentary, Cases and Materials (OUP 2014), 870.
ibid.
UN, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (n 60) art 2; Maria M Sepúlveda Carmona, The Nature of the Obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Intersentia 2003), 157.
ICESCR, (n 60), art 11, para 2.
CESCR, 1999 (n 63) para 36.
CESCR, General Comment No.3: The Nature of States Parties’ Obligations (Art. 2, Para. 1, of the Covenant), UN Doc. E/1991/23, 14 December 1990.
ICESCR, (n 60), art 15.
UN General Assembly, Resolution 217A (III), Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UN Doc. A/RES/217(III), 10 December 1948, art 27.
Johannes Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting and Intent (University of Pennsylvania Press 1999). For an overview, see William A Schabas, ‘Looking Back: How the Founders Considered Science and Progress in Their Relation to Human Rights’ [2015] European Journal of Human Rights 504.
Samantha Besson, ‘The “Human Right to Science” qua right to participate in science. The participatory good of science and its human rights dimensions’ (2024) 28 The International Journal of Human Rights 497, 510.
CESCR, General Comment No.25 (2020) on science and economic, social and cultural rights (article 15(1)(b), (2), (3) and (4) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), UN Doc. E/C.12/GC/25, 30 April 2020, paras 4–8.
UN Human Rights Council, The right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications, Report of the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, Farida Shaheed, UN Doc. A/HRC/20/26, 14 May 2012, para 25.
UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 25 (n 75), 23–27. See also General Comment no 3.
UNESCO, Venice Statement on the Right to Enjoy the Benefits of Scientific Progress and its Applications, (Venice, 2009), para 12, letter d. For an overview see Amrei Müller, ‘Remarks on the Venice Statement on the Right to Enjoy the Benefits of Scientific Progress and its Applications (Article15(1)(b) ICESCR)’ (2010) 10 Human Rights Law Review 765.
For instance ICESCR, art 11(2)(a); Convention on the Rights of the Child, UN Doc. A/44/49, 20 November 1989, Art.24(2)(c); Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Protocol of San Salvador), 1988, art 12(2). See also Kerstin Mechlem, Terri Raney, ‘Agricultural Biotechnology and the Right to Food’ in Francesco Francioni (ed), Biotechnologies and International Human Rights (Hart 2007); Olivier De Schutter, ‘The Right of Everyone to Enjoy the Benefits of Scientific Progress and the Right to Food: From Conflict to Complementarity’ (2011) 33 Human Rights Quarterly 304.
UNESCO, Venice Statement on the Right to Enjoy the Benefits of Scientific Progress and its Applications, (n 78) para 1(i).
UN, General Comment No. 25 (n 77), paras 58–62.
ibid para 61.
ibid.
ibid. The Committee previously furnished analogous indications in CESCR, General Comment No. 17 (2005), The right of everyone to benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he or she is the author (article 15, paragraph 1 (c), of the Covenant), UN Doc. E/C.12/GC/17.
Report of the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, 14 May 2012, paras 56–65.
UN General Assembly, Cultural rights, Report of the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, UN Doc. A/70/279, New York 4 August 2015.
ibid para 89.
ibid para 100.
ibid para 110.
UN General Assembly, Seeds, right to life and farmers’ rights, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, UN Doc. A/HRC/49/43, New York 30 December 2021.
Sandra Schwindenhammer, ‘The Future We Want? Interlinking Global Sustainability Norm Change, Technology Innovation, and Regime Complexity’ in Heike Krieger and Andrea Liese, Tracing Value Change in the International Legal Order. Perspectives from Legal and Political Science (OUP 2023).
Anne Orford, ‘The 2022 Annual Kirby Lecture in International Law: Why It’s Time to Terminate the TRIPS Agreement’ (2024) 41 The Australian Yearbook of International Law Online 3 <https://brill.edhh.ma/view/journals/auso/41/1/article-p3_1.xml?srsltid=AfmBOor8MarULuPmoyfIouAdAMK91xiIgllFat8eP6FOwNH9fzlG7XNE> accessed 24 June 2025.
Siva Thambisetty, ‘Termination of the TRIPS Agreement: Necessary And Impossible’ (2023) Opinio Juris <https://opiniojuris.org/2023/01/11/termination-of-the-trips-agreement-necessary-and-impossible/>, accessed 30 May 2025.
Claudio Chiarolla, ‘Commodifying Agricultural Biodiversity and Development-Related Issues’ (2006) 9 The Journal of World Intellectual Property 41.
Edward Kwakwa, ‘International Legal Argumentation Outside the Courtroom: A Focus on Intellectual Property’ in Ian Johnstone, Steven Ratner (eds), Talking International Law. Legal Argumentation Outside the Courtroom (OUP 2021).
Matthew T Stilwell, Review of Article 27.3(b), (CIEL 2001).
Francesco Seatzu, ‘The day after no tomorrow?: the right to seeds as a new and distinct human right?’ (2024) 4 Federalismi.it 215.
De Schutter, ‘The Right of Everyone to Enjoy the Benefits of Scientific Progress’ (n 79). See for instance at the domestic level, n° DL-33004/2001, The Protection of Plan Varieties and Farmers Rights Act 2001, Gazette of India, 30 October 2001.
Lea Shaver, ‘The Right to Science and Culture’ [2010] Wisconsin Law Review 121, 127.
ibid 183; Laurence R Helfer, ‘Regime Shifting: The TRIP s Agreement and New Dynamics of International Intellectual Property Lawmaking’ (2004) 29 Yale Journal of International Law 1.
FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023. Urbanization, Agrifood systems transformation and healthy diets across the rural-urban continuum (Rome 2023).