Indigenous intellectual property is an umbrella legal term used in national and international forums to identify indigenous peoples' special rights to claim (from within their own laws) all that their indigenous groups know now, have known, or will know.
It is a concept that has developed out of a predominantly western legal tradition, and has most recently been promoted by the World Intellectual Property Organisation, as part of a more general United Nations push to see the diverse wealth of this world's indigenous, intangible cultural heritage better valued and better protected against perceived, ongoing misappropriation and misuse.
Nation states across the world have difficulties reconciling locally indigenous traditions, laws and cultural norms with predominantly western legal systems, effectively leaving indigenous peoples' individual and communal intellectual property rights largely unprotected.
Read more about Indigenous Intellectual Property: Declarations Regarding Indigenous Intellectual Property, United Nations Declaration On The Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Famous quotes containing the words indigenous, intellectual and/or property:
“What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground,—and to one another; it is either winged or it is legged. It is hardly as if you had seen a wild creature when a rabbit or a partridge bursts away, only a natural one, as much to be expected as rustling leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In fact, there is clear evidence of black intellectual superiority: in 1984, 92 percent of blacks voted to retire Ronald Reagan, compared to only 36 percent of whites.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“Oh, had I received the education I desired, had I been bred to the profession of the law, I might have been a useful member of society, and instead of myself and my property being taken care of, I might have been a protector of the helpless, a pleader for the poor and unfortunate.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)