Regime Complex in Life Sciences Innovation: Disclosure of Source, Traditional Knowledge and Shifts in Intellectual Property and Knowledge Governance

The last decades have witnessed intense discourses about knowledge systems.The artificiality of the old paradigms of knowledge demarcation has continued to collapse as with hitherto hard-edged disciplinary boundaries.Yet there is pragmatic basis for the conventional framing of knowledge systems along the broad Western and non-Western (traditional) knowledge binaries.But the trend in the convergence of knowledge systems and the melding of disciplinary boundaries makes significant demands on how knowledge is governed and, of course, on the intellectual property (IP) system.A convenient reference point is the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which is a keystone international initiative for stemming global biodiversity crisis.Intrepidly, the CBD recognizes the knowledge systems of ''indigenous [Peoples] and local communities'' (IPLCs) as the embodiment of innovations and practices necessary to tackle biodiversity loss.In addition, it mainstreams transfer of environmentally sound technologies especially to IPLCs and developing countries to enhance the effectiveness of their role in biodiversity conservation.Furthermore, the CBD aspires toward balanced knowledge governance; to ensure that IPLCs share equitably in the benefits from the uses of genetic resources and traditional knowledge.Although the CBD is not an IP instrument, it adumbrated the ambivalence of IP for IPLCs.That ambivalence is evident in the context of the CBD's provisions that interface IP with technology transfer as a pathway for IPLCs to benefit from the contributions of their knowledge systems.Insights from IPLCs' uses of genetic resources are critical to a range scientific and technical innovations in the life