Justice and benefit sharing
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2009-12-01
Source Title
Indigenous Peoples Consent and Benefit Sharing Lessons from the San Hoodia Case
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Springer Netherlands
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Philosophy, Anthropology and Social Inquiry
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Schroeder, D. (2009). Justice and benefit sharing. Indigenous Peoples Consent and Benefit Sharing Lessons from the San Hoodia Case, (1), pp.11-26. Springer Netherlands.
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Benefit sharing as envisaged by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is a relatively new idea in international law. In the context of non-human biological resources, it aims to guarantee the conservation of biodiversity and its sustainable use by ensuring that its custodians are adequately rewarded for its preservation.Prior to the adoption of the CBD, biological resources were regarded as the common heritage of humankind. Bioprospectors were able to take resources out of their natural habitat and develop commercial products without sharing benefits with states or local communities. Since 1992, prior informed consent has been required from states for access to biological resources, and users of these resources are required to develop fair and equitable benefit-sharing agreements on mutually agreed terms.This chapter asks how benefit sharing fits into debates on justice. It argues that the CBD is an example of a set of social rules designed to increase social utility. It also proposes that the common heritage of humankind principle would be preferable to assigning bureaucratic property rights to biological resources. However, as long as the international economic order is characterized by serious distributive injustices, reflected in the enormous poverty-related death toll in developing countries, any ethical attempt to redress the balance in favour of the disadvantaged has to be welcomed. By legislating for a justice in exchange system covering non-human biological resources and traditional knowledge in preference to the tacit common heritage of humankind principle, the CBD has provided a small step forward in redressing the balance. It therefore presents just legislation sensitive to the international relations context in the twenty-first century.
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Applied Ethics