Intellectual Property Rights and Food Security: The Role of External Relations

Conference paper

Abstract

Intellectual property rights (IPRs) have become an important tool in ensuring food security; however, if used inappropriately, it could well create the reverse. This paper looks at the concept of IPRs in order to find a way to harness their use so as food security is ensured. A tentative argument proposed here is that IPRs do not exist in a metaphysical or epistemological vacuum; on the contrary, research and development leading up to patentable products is often related to social, economic, or political contexts in such a way that the relation is constitutive. Thus, it is appropriate that claims to IPRs should acknowledge these relations through a scheme of benefit sharing that is fair to all parties. In the course of the paper, I will discuss the four major theories of IPRs according to Fisher—the consequentialist theory, the Lockean theory, the Kantian/Hegelian theory, and the democratic order theory. The aim is to criticize each of them very briefly in terms of the constitutive external relations. If it is the case that IPRs are even partly constituted by relations to outside contexts, then elements of these contexts should have a share in the benefits that accrue through the use of IPRs also.

Keywords

Intellectual property rights Ethics Food security External relations Benefit sharing 
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Notes

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank Helena Röcklinsberg and Per Sandin for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper, which led to many improvements. I would also like to thank the executive committee of the EurSAFE for inviting me to the conference in Uppsala. Research for this paper has been partially supported by a grant from the Thailand Research Fund and the National Research University Project, grant number BRG5380009 and AS569A, respectively.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Philosophy and Center for Ethics of Science and TechnologyChulalongkorn UniversityBangkokThailand

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