The Thammasat Resolution

Building and strengthening our sui generis rights

Some 45 representatives of indigenous, peasant, non-governmental, academic and governmental organisations from 19 countries, who met in Bangkok in early December, issued a statement reaffirming their opposition to the extension of intellectual property rights (IPRs) to all life forms, to biopiracy and the monopolisation of biodiversity-related knowledge through such IPRs. Below is the full text of their final statement.

"WE, 45 representatives of indigenous, peasant, non-governmental, academic and governmental organisations from 19 countries, came together on 1-6 December 1997 at Thammasat campus just outside Bangkok, Thailand, for an international seminar on Sui Generis Rights co-organised by Biothai and GRAIN.

We met to study, assess and develop our response to the increasing privatisation of biodiversity and local knowledge, especially as driven by the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and resulting legislation at the regional and national levels.

We focused in particular on the sui generis rights option for intellectual property over plant varieties as imposed on all WTO member states by the TRIPs Agreement, as well as on other international agreements related to biodiversity such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

In Thai, 'Thammasat' means 'knowledge of nature'. It also means 'justice'. The name of our venue is central to us. Indigenous peoples, farmers and local communities have, over millenia, nurtured and developed the biodiversity on which humanity now depends. They have been wisely using their knowledge of nature to create sustainable food and health systems based on sharing their knowledge and biodiversity with others. Such community systems are being destroyed by economic development under the guise of free trade, Green Revolution agriculture and the new biotechnologies, and globalisation.

They are also being destroyed by the rampant pirating and monopolisation of biodiversity and related knowledge through the extension of intellectual property rights (IPRs) to life forms.

Perhaps no country exemplifies our concerns about WTO-enshrined globalisation as our host country.

At the time we were meeting, Thailand - and much of the rest of South-East and East Asia - is going through a profound crisis resulting from years of economic growth founded upon fleeting speculative investment.

The currency tailspin which started last July is accompanied by destabilisation of markets, loss of employment and cutting of public spending, and results in a clear loss of control over our own economies and livelihoods with the IMF taking the steering wheel.

The WTO TRIPs Agreement obliges developing countries to provide some form of IPRs on plant varieties by the year 2000. This may be done by patents or by some 'sui generis' rights system - meaning, in Latin, a system 'of its own kind'.

In 1999, one year before implementation in the developing countries, this provision will be reviewed and we are preparing ourselves for this review.

We reaffirm our total and frontal opposition to the extension of intellectual property rights to life forms, be it on humans, animals, plants, microorganisms, or their genes, cells and other parts. We are also adamantly against biopiracy and the monopolisation of biodiversity-related knowledge through such IPRs.

Our understanding of sui generis rights in TRIPs

The overall implication of TRIPs, and for that matter the whole of the WTO, is highly detrimental to peoples' economies, cultures and livelihoods.

The sui generis provision of TRIPs gives WTO member states room to develop their own kind of IPRs protection for plant varieties, and many nations are now changing their national IPRs laws.

While some people look at the sui generis option in TRIPs as a window through which other forms of rights over biodiversity can be articulated in legislation, it is our conviction that such rights will be linked to IPRs and will result in new and further monopoly rights over plant varieties.

The same is true of any sui generis rights option which could be developed and proposed under the TRIPs Agreements for local and indigenous knowledge.

The reaffirmation of our sui generis rights

'Sui generis' perfectly describes the rights and systems we are struggling to defend - our 'own kind' of rights and systems. We recognise our sui generis rights to exist independently of the IPR-based sui generis systems promoted by the TRIPs Agreement.

Our rights are inalienable; they existed long before IPRs regimes were established. As legal, political, economic, social and cultural rights, they are part of peoples' sovereignty and therefore part of human rights.

As community/collective rights, they are indivisible and inter-generational; they include farmers' rights and apply to indigenous peoples, peasant and family farmers, fisherfolk and other local communities which derive their livelihoods from biodiversity.

Their place and expression is firstly at the local level, but they must also be recognised and guaranteed at the national and international levels.

The rights that we are struggling to develop, defend and let flourish should never be misinterpreted as, or denatured into, intellectual property rights.

Because peoples' rights are under tremendous threat, we see the promotion of such rights also as a tool for resistance against, and the rolling back of, the forces of monopoly.

It is on this basis that we will actively engage our societies from the village level through to our governments in the capitals to take part in the struggle for our sui generis rights, and on to the international level to oppose IPRs on all forms of life. This implies a whole range of information, research, campaign and coalition building activities over the long term. Some of the immediate tasks at hand are to:

• Reinforce the defence mechanisms of local communities who are highly vulnerable to unbridled bioprospecting and to the introduction of genetically engineered organisms.

• Support any calls by local communities for a moratorium on bioprospecting, and demand an immediate moratorium on the research, development, release, and trans-boundary movement of genetically engineered organisms.

• Assert the primacy of international agreements on biodiversity, such as the CBD and FAO instruments, over TRIPs and other trade regimes, for the resolution of these issues.

• Reaffirm the original intent of the CBD for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and prevent the CBD from becoming a mechanism for transnational corporations to trade in biodiversity in the name of 'access' and 'benefit-sharing'.

• Mobilise a strong global movement engaging environmental, trade, agriculture, consumer, labour, health, food security, women's, and human rights and all people's organisations in these campaigns.

In the spirit of justice and embracing all knowledge of nature, we commit ourselves to the Thammasat Action Plan and invite other organisations, movements and peoples to join us in the struggle to achieve this vision".