A Right of Indigenous Peoples to Their Cultural Heritage, Their Traditional Knowledge, Their Traditional Cultural Expressions and Their Intellectual Property : Commentary on Art. 30 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Art. 30 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) enshrines a right of indigenous peoples to their cultural heritage, their traditional knowledge, their manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures and to their intellectual property. Altogether, Art. 30 gives indigenous peoples a right to maintain, protect and control these items, which includes a right to enjoy and use sciences, technologies and culture, a right to non-interference, and some sort of a proprietary right, including the idea of a collective intellectual-property-type entitlement. The provision draws from other rights enshrined in the declaration concerning the cultural identity of indigenous peoples and, for instance, their right to their traditional medicine. It has quite some implications on a number of UNESCO Conventions and their practice, on the CBD and its Art. 8 lit. j and on the work of the Intergovnermental Committee of WIPO