Fair Access or Mirage? A Biodiscovery Case Study at Uluru for Indigenous Benefit-sharing

International minimum standards for sharing and protecting Indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge have been adopted under United Nations conventions which promote fair and equitable benefit-sharing with Indigenous peoples. However, biodiscovery continues in Australia using Indigenous peoples' traditional knowledge without adequately recognising their rights and interests despite Australia having signed the Nagoya Protocol. In this paper, we use legal doctrinal research combined with qualitative analysis and a case study to demonstrate inconsistencies of Australian Commonwealth regulation with the Nagoya Protocol for accessing genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge from Commonwealth areas and benefit-sharing with Indigenous communities (Collings 2024). We use an example of biodiscovery at Uluru which is a sacred site where Australian native tobacco species were collected under permit to demonstrate the shortcomings of Australia’s Commonwealth access and benefit-sharing regulation. We conclude that regulatory arrangements in Australia for collecting and using biological resources and associated traditional knowledge from Commonwealth areas are inconsistent with international standards and often unenforceable to protect traditional knowledge and provide fair and reasonable benefit-sharing with Australia’s Indigenous peoples.