Dear Colleague,
We are writing to you to ask your support in a civil society process that will lead to a Treaty to Share the Genetic Commons, which we propose to have adopted by governments and civil society at the Rio+10 Conference in South Africa next year. A copy of our draft treaty text is attached as a "work-in-progress". Our hope is that we will have an opportunity to discuss the proposed treaty and the strategy surrounding its acceptance both by e-mail and during the PrepCom for Rio+10 at the UN in New York beginning April 30th.
We, the undersigned, would like to enlist your active support in a new initiative to establish the Earth's gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, as a global commons to be jointly shared by all peoples.
Our aim is to prohibit all patents on plant, microorganism, animal, and human life includingpatents on genes and the products they code for, in their natural, purified or synthesized form, as well as chromosomes, cells, tissues, organs and organisms including cloned, transgenic and chimeric organisms.
We feel the time is right for a broad challenge on all patents on life and believe that this initiative can rally widespread public support across the entire political spectrum and among every major social constituency and interest group.
How does this initiative differ from current efforts underway ? the Biological Diversity Convention, the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources, TRIPS, etc. ? to establish a global regime to govern and regulate the use of biological resources? Our initiative adopts some common themes but differs in one very fundamental respect. Unlike the other initiatives, we oppose the extension of intellectual property rights to any living thing as well as the components of all living things. We believe that our evolutionary heritage is not a negotiable commodity. While we hail the good intentions of both the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources (IU), their goal of equitably sharing the earth's biological heritage can only be realized by prohibiting all commercial patents on life.
We agree with the position that the gene pool and its products are a global commons ? a position often put forward by the life science companies and some governments, including the United States. Unfortunately, the life science companies have misinterpreted and misappropriated the term "global commons" to claim unlimited access to the world's genetic diversity for the purposes of converting it into private intellectual property. They have failed to understand that because the Earth's gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, is a global commons and, therefore, a product of nature, it cannot be claimed, in whole or in part, as intellectual property.
We agree with the position, often extolled by the group of 77 and China, that governments and Indigenous Peoples have the sovereign responsibility to oversee the biological resources within their borders and determine how they are managed and shared. However, because the gene pool is a global commons, it cannot be sold by any institution or individual as genetic information.
All of the current arrangements and consultative initiatives, to the extent that they are based on the principle of selling "prospecting rights" to genetic information and extending intellectual property protection to life, are unacceptable mechanisms for governing the gene pool in the Age of Biology.
The Treaty to Share the Genetic Commons is designed to make every government and Indigenous Peoples a "caretaker" of their geographic part of the global genetic commons and to establish the appropriate statutory mechanisms to ensure both national sovereignty and open access to the flow of genetic information, in the spirit of collective responsibility for our shared evolutionary legacy.
It is our intention to reach out to civil society organizations, political parties, and governments around the world to enlist broad popular support for this initiative. We are on the cusp of an historic transformation from the Age of Physics and Chemistry to the Age of Biology. It is critical, at the dawn of this new era, that we establish our collective responsibility for stewarding the earth's gene pool.
Those of us writing to you today wish to express our strong commitment to the core message and goals in the draft treaty. We also wish to assure you and our other colleagues in civil society that your advice and input are both needed and welcome and that we fully expect the language of the text to be altered with discussion. In sending you this draft at this time, we are seeking your ideas as well as asking for your support, in principle, for the values expressed in the treaty. Could you please sign and return the enclosed form, and contact us with your thoughts at: treaty@foet.org? Could you also let us know if you or someone from your organization will be in New York on April 30th for the Rio+10 PrepCom and would be available to attend a brief information meeting on the treaty?
We look forward to discussing this with you by e-mail and in person – in the days ahead.
Yours sincerely,
Alejandro Argumendo, Direttore, Asociación Quechua-Aymara ANDES/Indigenous People's Biodiversity Network (IPBN)
Maude Barlow, Presidente Nazionale, Council of Canadians
Bill Christison, Presidente, National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC)
Neth Dano, Direttore Esecutivo, South East Asian Regional Institute for Community Education (SEARICE)
Benedikt Haerlin, Coordinatore Internazionale, Greenpeace Genetic Engineering Campaign
Debra Harry, Direttore Esecutivo, Indigenous People's Council on Biocolonialism (IPCB)
Randy Hayes, Presidente, Rainforest Action Network (RAN)
Dena Hoff, Via Campesina
Debby Kaplan, Executive Director, World Institute on Disability (WIG)
Jerry Mander, Presidente, International Forum on Globalization (IFG)
Camila Montecinos, Capo del Programma di Biodiversitá, Centro de Educación y Tecnología (CET)
Pat Roy Mooney, Direttore Esecutivo, Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI)
Andrew T. Mushita, Direttore, Community Technology Development Trust (CTDT)
Fabrizia Pratesi, Coordinatrice, Comitato Scientifico Antivivisezionista (CSA)
Jeremy Rifkin, Presidente, Foundation on Economic Trends (FOET)
Mark Ritchie, Presidente, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP)
Vandana Shiva, Direttore, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology
Martin Teitel, Presidente, Council for Responsible Genetics (CRG)
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Please return this form to Comitato Scientifico Antivivisezionista (info@antivivisezione.it or csafin@iol.it) and we will forward it to the right person.
We proclaim these truths to be universal and indivisible;
That the intrinsic value of the Earth's gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, precedes its utility and commercial value, and therefore must be respected and safeguarded by all political, commercial and social institutions,
That the Earth's gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, exists in nature and, therefore, must not be claimed as intellectual property even if purified and synthesized in the laboratory,
That the global gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, is a shared legacy and, therefore, a collective responsibility,
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Whereas, our increasing knowledge of biology confers a special obligation to serve as a steward on behalf of the preservation and well being of our species as well as all of our other fellow creatures,
Therefore, the nations of the world declare the Earth's gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, to be a global commons, to be protected and nurtured by all peoples and further declare that genes and the products they code for, in their natural, purified or synthesized form as well as chromosomes, cells, tissue, organs and organisms, including cloned, transgenic and chimeric organisms, will not be allowed to be claimed as commercially negotiable genetic information or intellectual property by governments, commercial enterprises, other institutions or individuals.
The Parties to the treaty – to include signatory nation states and Indigenous Peoples – further agree to administer the gene pool as a trust. The signatories acknowledge the sovereign right and responsibility of every nation and homeland to oversee the biological resources within their borders and determine how they are managed and shared. However, because the gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, is a global commons, it cannot be sold by any institution or individual as genetic information. Nor can any institution or individual, in turn, lay claim to the genetic information as intellectual property.
5 April 2002
Dear Friends,
As you are aware, the Treaty Initiative to Share the Genetic Commons was formally launched in February at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. With the help of many of the early co-sponsors, we were also able to present the initiative at a parallel event in New York at the PrepCom for Rio+10. On both occasions, the introduction of the Treaty encouraged many new civil society partners to join the initiative, and the meetings allowed those already involved and new allies to discuss the Treaty text, its goals, and its process in detail. To date, more than 325 CSOs from over 50 countries have joined the initiative. The Treaty is based on two decades of movement building to stop the patenting of life forms and the creation of monopolies over seeds, food and medicine. The Treaty represents a collective commitment to defend the integrity of life and peoples' rights.
The results of the Treaty launch were the topic of a teleconference held on March 4th that brought together a dozen or so co-sponsors from almost as many countries and regions. During our teleconference, we agreed that it would be helpful to provide everyone with an update on the Treaty's progress and to make a special additional effort to broaden and open the initiative to the widest possible range of partners. We are writing to our friends and colleagues now in order to:
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Encourage discussion around the basic principles that underlie the Treaty; |
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Promote specific ideas concerning the actual draft text of the Treaty - particularly formulations of words that would ensure that our principles are clearly expressed in the text in language that clarifies the cultural, linguistic, and historical concerns of partners around the world; |
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Confirm the importance of the process in which we are engaged. We have understood all along that the process of drafting the Treaty (already in its 12th month and 8th draft) is central to its success and that every effort must be made to facilitate the full participation of the many constituencies, regions, and cultures that are affected by the initiative; |
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Propose a process for moving the initiative forward together. |
Perhaps more than anything else, the Treaty Initiative is a positive affirmation of the sacred integrity of the earth's genetic inheritance and of our shared rights and duties to defend this integrity and to ensure that it is used for the benefit of all humanity and does not become the exclusive commercial monopoly of anyone. The Treaty attempts to affirm a "positive" rather than pose a "negative".
To be clear, the Treaty text must support the sovereignty of nations and of communities to exchange or withhold the genetic materials they hold in trust. The only prohibitions are not to destroy genetic diversity and not to claim ? or allow others to claim ? monopoly rights over germplasm. We wish to affirm national sovereignty and community rights as well as the right of individuals whose genetic makeup is subject to discrimination (commercial or special) to have their own genetic integrity and rights ensured. The primary aim of the Treaty is to stop the North and corporations from pirating the South's and communities' genetic inheritance.
For many decades, life science companies have been scouting the world in search of genes in microbes, plants, animals, and human populations that might be commercially valuable in the biological marketplace. The US and other governments have allowed companies to lay claim over thousands of genes in the form of intellectual property rights. Many governments and indigenous and farming communities, especially in the developing world, complain of bio-piracy and argue that companies should not be allowed free reign to access the genetic resources of their lands without prior consent or proper financial compensation.
At the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, most of the world's nations signed a treaty that, among other provisions, affirmed the principle that every country enjoys absolute sovereignty over the regulation and use of genetic resources within its own borders. The treaty further reaffirmed the right of every country to enter into bilateral agreements with other governments, commercial, academic, and other institutions to sell bioprospecting rights for their genetic information. The signatory countries acknowledged the right of commercial and other enterprises to patent genetic information.
We believe that when host countries receive compensation for bioprospecting rights, in exchange for intellectual property rights, a framework is created for a new and dangerous form of high-tech biocolonialism. Host countries, especially in the developing world, will be given token financial compensation for the right to exploit their domestic genetic resources and then be forced to buy back patented products from seeds to drugs at exorbitant prices, further deepening the divide between the "haves" and "have-not" nations.
Furthermore, the notion of selling exclusive bioprospecting rights and securing a monopoly in the form of patents on genetic information runs counter to the very principles of shared responsibility for the earth's biodiversity espoused by the countries that signed the Biodiversity Convention Treaty. Sustainable global development is an unrealizable goal in a world where countries and corporations can enter into exclusive monopoly agreements to profit off of the genetic blueprints of millions of years of biological evolution on Earth.
We believe that the earth's gene pool is a collective legacy and a shared trust and should not be reduced to negotiable commodities in the global marketplace. At the same time, we agree with the principle affirmed at the Rio summit that communities and countries are responsible for managing and stewarding genetic resources within their borders. There is a difference, however, between the sovereign right to act as a trustee - to be responsible for sustaining that part of the earth's biodiversity that lies within one's national or community boundaries – and the illegitimate act of entering into exclusive monopoly arrangements with commercial institutions to profit off of the earth's genetic legacy. The gene pool exists apriori to and independent of any contemporary political or commercial institution. It is therefore not reducible to monopolies in the hands of governments or companies.
These are three guiding principles that have inspired the Treaty Initiative to Share the Genetic Commons:
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The earth's genetic endowment is a collective legacy and shared trust. |
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Every community and country has the right and responsibility, assisted if requested by the international community, to manage that portion of the earth's genetic endowment that lies within its territory. |
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While communities and countries have sovereignty over the terms by which the genetic materials they hold in trust are shared with the world, that genetic information cannot be legitimately claimed as monopoly property in the marketplace. Selling exclusive bioprospecting rights or claiming genetic information as exclusive intellectual property is a violation of the spirit of biodiversity. |
Every word comes with its own cultural and historic connotations, but we believe that these three principles convey the Treaty's purpose (other language translations will follow shortly).
We would like to emphasize that the Treaty Initiative to Share the Genetic Commons does not, in any way, preclude existing commercial and trade arrangements between countries and companies to buy and sell agricultural commodities and other biologically derived products in the global marketplace. The Treaty Initiative is designed only to ensure that the genetic composition of living organisms does not become the exclusive monopoly of countries or companies.
For more than a year now, the draft Treaty text has been a "work in progress" that has benefited greatly from many inputs. Our "work" continues. Your help and advice is needed.To truly represent the beliefs and aspirations of civil society, the text must be clear in as many languages as possible. To get our message across, the text should also be as brief as possible. There is a special burden on the world's major languages (those used by the United Nations, for example) to use words that convey the right meaning to as many different cultures as possible. Some words may convey different meanings in different cultures and some may have been co-opted in one or more regions. We recognize that we must be very careful with terms such as "commons" and we must be clear in our use of terms such as "sovereignty" and "community rights". We must shed colonial and neo-liberal interpretations of words that are important to us. Specific social movements such as farmers (with respect to land rights), indigenous peoples (with respect to land and genetic material of unique spiritual importance) or people who have been socially disabled as a result of genetic or disease discrimination, may need to have additional language or greater clarification in the Treaty. Please help us to ensure that the spirit of our shared principles is made clear in the text.
Many farming cultures share a joke about the city driver who stopped to ask directions from a farmer. After considering several options, the farmer finally concludes, "You can't get there from here." But, every initiative starts somewhere and good ideas should have the potential to go everywhere. So far, more than 325 CSOs from over 50 countries have given their support to the Treaty Initiative. We need your help now to broaden and deepen everyone's participation. Please do all you can to get this initiative into the hands of ? and the languages of ? as many potential partners as possible. We have three general proposals that we hope will encourage participation:
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Please be willing to act as a disseminator of information about the Treaty among your own partners and also be prepared to help your colleagues convey their specific ideas, wording, and concerns, to the Treaty Co-Sponsors. This would be especially helpful where language might prove a barrier to effective participation. |
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Please encourage as many as are able to discuss the draft text on the following email message board: "genetic-patents@iatp.org". The discussion here will be visible and open to everyone and will be carefully noted by the Co-Sponsors as they offer future drafts. (Note: a frequently updated list of signatories to the Treaty can also be seen at: www.foet.org) |
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If the Internet is a barrier to participation, please encourage any and all to send their thoughts to: Treaty Initiative, 1660 L Street, NW, Suite 216, Washington, DC 20036; Fax: 202-429-9602 |
As several people pointed out during our recent teleconference, the process is as important as the product. We will not rush the process in order to achieve an unsatisfactory product. Specific opportunities for participatory discussions at global and regional levels: During our teleconference, we briefly identified a number of opportunities for CSO consideration of the proposed Treaty in the months ahead. We are committed to creating space for these discussions at the following venues but we would also welcome additional suggestions for discussion at global, regional, national or community levels. If you are willing to host a specific discussion on the Treaty Initiative ? perhaps during a seminar or conference you are already planning for other purposes ? please let us know the details so that we can help to encourage participation.
– PrepComs for Rio+10
– Regional Conferences for FAO
– 17-18 May: Summit of Latin America, Caribbean and Europe, Madrid (Spain)
– End of May: 4th Preparatory Meeting for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Indonesia
– Early June: World Food Summit, Rome (Italy)
– 22-23 June: EU Summit, Seville (Spain)
– July: G8 Summit, Toronto and Calgary (Canada)
– End of August / Beginning of September: Rio+10, Johannesburg (South Africa)
– September: Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM), Copenhagen (Denmark)
– October: Social Continental Forum "A new integration is possible," Quito (Ecuador)
– November: 2nd Hemispheric Meeting Against FTAA, Cuba
– December: EU Summit, Copenhagen (Denmark)
– Other meetings ?
Having launched the Treaty Initiative last month after a year of discussion, many participating CSOs are eager to encourage national debate or wider constituency discussion. As long as the Treaty's principles are clearly in view, all such activity contributes to the process and should be encouraged. We have always assumed that those who have "signed" the initiative have signed onto the process itself. The Treaty is a catalyst to build processes in society, in parliaments, and in governments to protect the integrity of life, peoples' knowledge and people's rights. We invite you to join us in building, spreading, strengthening this process. We hope that this short update on the Treaty Initiative is helpful to you and your colleagues and that you will keep in contact with your own thoughts and ideas on every aspect of our work together.
Yours sincerely,
Alejandro Argumendo, Director, Indigenous Peoples' Biodiversity Network (IPBN)
Maude Barlow, National Chairperson, Council of Canadians
Bill Christison, President, National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC)
Neth Dano, Executive Director, South East Asian Regional Institute for Community Education (SEARICE)
Debra Harry, Executive Director, Indigenous People's Council on Biocolonialism (IPCB)
Camila Montecinos, Jefe Programa de Biodiversidad, Centro de Educación y Tecnología (CET)
Pat Roy Mooney, Executive Director, ETC Group
Andrew T. Mushita, Director, Community Technology Development Trust (CTDT)
Fabrizia Pratesi, Architect Coordinator, Comitato Scientifico Antivivisezionista (CSA)
Jeremy Rifkin, President, Foundation on Economic Trends (FOET)
Mark Ritchie, President, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP)
Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, Presidente dei Verdi, Federazione Nazionale dei Verdi
Vandana Shiva, Director, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology
Martin Teitel, President, Council for Responsible Genetics (CRG)