Access and benefit sharing: a valid instrument for compensation?

Abstract: Patents on traditional knowledge and the issue of biopiracy has been a debated issue since the Uruguay Round in the early 1990s. In order to handle this problem, the United Nations established the Convention on Biological Diversity and a subsidiary working group on Access and Benefit Sharing. This is supposed to help traditional knowledge holders claim their rights to benefit sharing when commercialization of the knowledge, that they are prime innovators of, is to occur. This paper seeks to give insight into the process of the implementation of Access and Benefit Sharing in the Kani-tribe and Tropical Botanical Garden Research Institute case. In more detail, what is discussed is the process of the agreement making and the outcome of the Access and Benefit Sharing. The analysis is drawn from a qualitative case study in Kerala, India. A theoretical framework based on theories regarding a rights based approach, institutional frameworks and preliminary studies on Access and Benefit Sharing is used together with the collected data. Ideas and conclusions derived from the discussion and the analysis are portraying a rather unequal playing field. In this case, Access and Benefit Sharing appears to be viewed more like an instrument for charity rather than a prerequisite for the use of traditional knowledge.