Claire Malwe

The project focuses on the legal regime of biodiversity genetic resources. It is part of a broader research question which aims at achieving a better understanding of how natural resource exploitation and trade should be organized and managed in order to ensure optimal food security and sustainable agriculture. One of the key issues examined, therefore, is the ability of legal systems to provide a biodiversity genetic resources regime which takes into account both necessities to feed humanity and to protect biodiversity.
Most of the existing legal regimes are actually based on the concept of “property”. For this reason, the proposed project will highlight the various ways in which this concept is defined by working on a comparative approach in several chosen territories across the world (in Europe, North America, and Central America). This theoretical approach should lead to a rediscover of “property- public goods” in light of market and non market values such as fundamental and human rights.
From theory to the local level, the project will then focus on the legal regime of biodiversity genetic resources in Costa Rica. Because Costa Rica has set up a “sui generis” legal, regime which reconciled environmental and intellectual property approaches, this country constitutes a favourable area to study a legal regime of biodiversity genetic resources. More especially, we will seek to understand the ways in which international and regional agreements connected with intellectual property rights affect legal regimes in developing countries, using the case study of Costa Rica.