This edited title flows from several panels at the Commission on Legal Pluralism Jubilee Conference, entitled Living Realities of Legal Pluralism that was organised in conjunction with the Centre for Legal and Applied Research (CLEAR), the Research Chair in Customary Law and the Chair for...

The past 25 years have seen a charged discourse about bio-piracy: the unequal access to benefits of genetic resources and local knowledge, and the intellectual property system's failure to adequately recognize Indigenous or non-western knowledge, while expanding property rights over life forms....

The search for appropriate modalities for the protection of indigenous or traditional knowledge is a subject of contemporary international law and policy discourse. As a primary mechanism for the allocation of rights over knowledge, Western or conventional intellectual property rights (IPRs)...

It is commonly accepted that as the primary mechanism for allocating rights over knowledge, western conventional intellectual property rights inadequately addresses the unique challenges of protecting traditional and indigenous knowledge. There is general consensus that a sui generis regime is...

This article examines the international legal framework in which traditional farmers and agricultural biotechnology (agro-biotech) protect their knowledge and plant genetic resources. Traditional farms and agro-biotech both play significant roles in enhancing global food security and...

This report explores the extent to which indigenous knowledge have been advanced by the 1992 Rio Earth Summit up to Rio 20 in the evolution of coastal, ocean and marine environmental law. Parties to the Rio Earth Summit have failed to follow through on their commitments, but the state of the...

The focus of the last two decades (1994–2015) on the world’s Indigenous peoples has highlighted a number of critical issues that are central to Indigenous empowerment and resurgence in the quest for decolonization. The key issues include Indigenous peoples’ full and effective participation...

Indigenous or traditional knowledge (TK) systems are the springboard of authentic African innovation and creativity. However, there has been no adequate attempt to determine whether Africa internalizes its factor endowment in indigenous knowledge systems in its continental frameworks for...

This study explores the current state and dynamics of the global Indigenous data sovereignty movement—the movement pressing for Indigenous peoples to have full control over the collection and governance of data relating to their lived realities. The article outlines the movement’s place...