Side Event

Book Launch: The Future Control of Food: A Guide to International Negotiations and Rules on Intellectual Property, Biodiversity and Food Security

Organizer
Quaker International Affairs Programme

Date and Time
21 January 2008 13:15 - 14:45

Meeting
Sixth meeting of the Open-ended Working Group on Access and Benefit-sharing (WG ABS 6)

This event will celebrate the launching of the book The Future Control of Food: A Guide to International Negotiations and Rules on Intellectual Property, Biodiversity and Food Security produced by the Quaker International Affairs Programme (QIAP) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The decision to produce this book was a response to concerns negotiators in various multilateral negotiations raised about the need for such a guide as well as an observation that negotiators or groups working in one area were often unaware, and sometime undermining, what was happening elsewhere that we encountered in the Quaker programme of work in this area. Some copies of the book will be available at the meeting. The book is the first wide-ranging guide to the key issues of intellectual property and ownership, genetics, biodiversity, and food security. Proceeding from an introduction and overview of the issues, comprehensive chapters cover negotiations and instruments in the World Trade Organization, Convention on Biological Diversity, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, World Intellectual Property Organization, the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants and various other international bodies. The final part discusses the responses of civil society groups to the changing global rules, how these changes affect the direction of research and development, the nature of global negotiation processes and various alternative futures. This event will provide an opportunity to hear from the book co-editors and several contributors.