(Earthscan Publishing, 2007)
Charles McManis has compiled and edited a book of groundbreaking essays on the balancing act between global economic development and the preservation of indigenous biodiversity and cultural heritage. Essay authors include international experts in the fields of law, biology and social sciences.
“The volume addresses one of the great questions of our times — namely how to promote global economic development, while simultaneously preserving local biological and cultural diversity,” noted McManis, director of the School of Law’s Intellectual Property and Technology Law Program and the Center for Research on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
“The book examines the aftermath of three major treatises: The Convention on Biological Diversity, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, and the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture,” he says.
“It analyzes examples of ‘global thinking’ about the protection of traditional knowledge and presents vignettes of how intellectual property mechanisms can be used to protect biodiversity locally.”
The book is adapted from papers originally presented at “Biodiversity, Biotechnology, & the Protection of Traditional Knowledge,” a 2003 conference hosted by the law school’s Center for Interdisciplinary Studies and Whitney R. Harris Institute for Global Legal Studies, the University’s Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and the Missouri Botanical Garden.