LEADER 00000nam  2200325   4500 
001    AAINQ94387 
005    20050627125022.5 
008    050627s2004                        eng d 
020    0612943879 
035    (UnM)AAINQ94387 
040    UnM|cUnM 
100 1  Nwabueze, Remigius Nnamdi 
245 10 Biotechnology and the challenge of property:  Rethinking 
       property rights in dead bodies, body parts, and 
       traditional knowledge 
300    397 p 
500    Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-
       10, Section: A, page: 3966 
500    Adviser:  Trudo Lemmens 
502    Thesis (S.J.D.)--University of Toronto (Canada), 2004 
520    Modern biotechnology has made possible the scientific and 
       industrial use of new or uncommon raw materials in the 
       production of goods and services that have implications 
       for human health, well-being, and the creation of wealth. 
       For instance, the human body and its parts are used by 
       biotech companies in the production of biomedical goods 
       and services, and in academic and commercial research. 
       Parts of the human body are used in transplant operations,
       fertility treatments, and medical education. Biotechnology
       has also converted some medicinal plants, mainly from 
       developing countries, and associated traditional knowledge
       into useful pharmaceutical compounds and products 
520    Biotechnological advances have in turn posed many 
       challenges to the law of property, whose concepts were 
       largely formulated in the period pre-dating most modern 
       biotechnological applications. Thus, questions arise as to
       the relevance and implication of property concepts for new
       forms of technology and innovations utilizing the human 
       body parts, biologic raw materials and products. Certain 
       cultures and legal systems may be offended by the 
       application of property concepts to the human body and 
       parts. Religious, spiritual, economic, and technological 
       considerations largely influence discussions and debate on
       the application of property law to the human body. But in 
       addition to advances in technology, older technology or 
       traditional knowledge also poses challenges to the law of 
       property. In other words, modernity as well as antiquity 
       challenges property. Traditional knowledge, including 
       folklore, folk agriculture, and folk medicine, were 
       generally regarded or presumed as being outside the 
       contemplation of conventional property and intellectual 
       property law 
520    Paying serious attention to some of the above issues may 
       warrant a special response of property law to meet the 
       valid demands of important segments of our global 
       community, whether they are biotech companies, scientific 
       researchers, public and private institutions, or 
       indigenous peoples and developing countries. But property 
       would more readily respond to the challenges posed by 
       advances in technology, economic and cultural dynamics of 
       any society, and issues raised by the protection of TK, if
       it is evolutionary, flexible, and capable of continuous 
       adaptation to changing needs and circumstances. Thus, this
       dissertation attempts to show that in contemporary legal 
       scholarship, 'property' is increasingly used as a flexible
       and evolutionary legal concept in contradistinction to its
       classical tangible conception and these features have made
       it possible to deploy property to some areas that were not
       within its original contemplation, such as human body, 
       body parts and TK. The flexibility and evolutionary 
       characteristic of property has contributed to useful 
       analytical legal discourses. In this dissertation, I 
       examine some of the challenges posed to the law of 
       property both by advances in modern biotechnology 
       utilizing the human body and parts of it and by the issues
       raised in the protection of traditional knowledge. 
       Specifically, I analyze the extent to which the 
       flexibility and evolutionary nature of property is capable
       of accommodating certain innovations and knowledge, for 
       instance, biotechnological products and raw materials: 
       human body parts and traditional knowledge. I recommend 
       the adoption of a limited property framework with respect 
       to the human body and its parts, and sui generis  regime 
       for traditional knowledge 
590    School code: 0779 
590    DDC 
650  4 Law 
690    0398 
710 20 University of Toronto (Canada) 
773 0  |tDissertation Abstracts International|g65-10A 
856 40 |uhttp://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/
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