4.3.6 Interaction of AKST and social movements
It is necessary that the AKST systems research social and peasant movements and development of structures to promote dialogue between them and other social actors and AKSTs. Determine through research why social movements have succeeded in having a recognizably positive impact on IAASTD goals. One way to ensure interaction with social movements is to establish a framework for research on these peasant and social movements and the ways in which they relate to other actors, while always emphasizing their importance and potential for bringing about improvements in quality of life, environmental sustainability and conservation of biodiversity. Studies of this type (also involving the actors themselves based on a bottom-up approach) reveal the impact of the democratization of access to land on the quality of life of producers and consumers.

4.3.7 Intellectual property rights (IPR)
The issue of ownership of knowledge generated in underdeveloped countries is currently at the center of an extremely polarized debate on technology and development. A number of options have been proposed to guarantee such ownership.        The result of the generalization and implementation of the TRIPS 24 Agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is a global system in which IPRs will become increasingly strict. Another school of thought holds that there is room for national strategies within this multilateral framework (PNUD, 2001).

This will require legislation using all the available resources provided for in the Agreement. Many governments have begun to draft their own legislation, while at the same time protecting the rights of farmers and of the patent holder as a means of promoting technological research and development on the one hand and agricultural productivity and biological diversity on the other (FAO, 2000).

Those countries that have the advantages of solid agricultural structures and abundant biological diversity as a support for their national economy, in particular, should protect their farmers and rural communities through specific rights adapted to the particularities of the issue in question. The TRIPS Agreement offers sufficient freedom of action to establish a system for the protection of new plant varieties that encompasses protection of the knowledge and practices of farmers and communities (FAO, 2000).25

24 Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights.
25 The norms of the TRIPS Agreement allow countries not to patent higher-level plant or animal organisms or essentially biological processes for the production of plants and animals. Signatories are generally required to protect micro-organisms and non-biological or micro-biological processes through patents. Countries must also protect plant varieties by means of patents, through an effective sui generis system or through any combination of both. The provisions of the TRIPS Agreement on patents are not always appropriate for protecting living material or related products. A sui generis system can offer greater flexibility when a legal framework for protection is developed.

      The Biodiversity Convention, signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, recognizes that patents and other intellectual property rights may have an influence on the implementation of the Convention,26 and therefore provides that the parties “. . . shall cooperate in this regard subject to national legislation and international law in order to ensure that such rights are supportive of and do not run counter to its objectives” (Article 16-5).

Since then some progress has been made on this issue, although the interests at stake are very important. Within the framework of multilateral negotiations, a group of developing countries with a mandate from the Doha Ministerial Conference of the WTO has pushed for an amendment to the TRIPS Agreement that would provide for three conditions to be attached to requests for patents related to biological resources and traditional knowledge: revelation of the country of origin or source; proof of prior informed consent; and evidence of a fair agreement for the distribution of benefits, in accordance with national laws. The industrialized countries and the major industries have rejected these proposals in the WTO. As a result, numerous objections are raised in the negotiations on access and profit sharing within the framework of the Biodiversity Convention each time that the developing countries insist that the parties fulfil their responsibility to ensure that the protection of property rights does not run counter to the objectives of the Biodiversity Convention (Yoke Ling and Shashikant, 2006).

The adoption by FAO of the International Treaty on Phytogenetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in November 2001 marked an important step forward in this field. The Treaty covers all of the most important phytogenetic resources for food and agriculture and is consistent with the Biodiversity Convention. Under the Treaty, countries agree to establish an effective, efficient and transparent multilateral system to facilitate access to phytogenetic resources for food and agriculture and to share benefits in a fair and equitable manner. The Treaty’s monitoring body, comprised of the countries that have ratified it, establishes the conditions for access to resources and distribution of benefits in accordance with the “Agreement on the Transfer of Material”.

In their national legislation, more and more countries have been adopting laws to ensure that the protection of intellectual property rights does not run counter to the provisions of the Biodiversity Convention. Costa Rica, for example, has adopted a Biodiversity Law that requires decisions taken to protect biodiversity-related intellectual property rights to be compatible with the objectives of this law. The state also grants protection through, inter alia, patents, trade secrets, recognition of the rights

26 The objectives of the Biodiversity Convention are: “the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources, including by appropriate access to genetic resources and by appropriate transfer of relevant technologies, taking into account all rights over those resources and to technologies, and by appropriate funding.” (Art.1)