Description

This volume provides a comprehensive compilation of multifaceted perspectives on the legal issues arising from the conservation and exploitation of non-human biological resources. Contributors include leading academics, policymakers and practitioners reviewing a range of socio-legal issues concerning the relationships between humankind and the natural world, including intellectual property, biotechnology and traditional knowledge.

The Editors

Charles R. McManis is the former Thomas and Karole Green Professor of Law Emeritus and former Director of the Intellectual Property and Technology Law Program at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He has served as a consultant for the World Intellectual Property Organization, in India, Korea and Oman, and in 2002 he presented a paper at a Joint WIPO/UPOV Symposium, on the Co-existence of Patents and Plant Breeders’ Rights, in Geneva, Switzerland. Professor McManis’s book, Intellectual Property and Unfair Competition in a Nutshell, is now in its seventh edition. He was co-author of Licensing Intellectual Property in the Information Age, the second edition of which was published in 2005 by Carolina Academic Press. He is also the editor of a multi-authored volume, entitled Biodiversity and the Law: Intellectual Property, Biotechnology and Traditional Knowledge (Earthscan /James & James, 2007).

Burton Ong is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the National University of Singapore where he teaches and researches in the areas of Competition Law, Contract Law and Intellectual Property Law. Between 2014 and 2017 he was the Deputy Director of APCEL. His areas of interest include the intersection between biodiversity and intellectual property law, access and benefit-sharing issues arising from bioprospecting, and the biodiversity and wildlife protection laws of the ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) member states. He is an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore and an Attorney and Counsellor-at-Law of the New York State Bar.

Guest of Honour

Dr Lena Chan is Senior Director of the International Biodiversity Conservation Division, National Parks Board (NParks) of Singapore. Some initiatives that Dr Chan has worked on include the development of the Singapore Index on Cities’ Biodiversity, drafting of NParks’ Nature Conservation Masterplan, the Pulau Tekong Coastal Protection and Mangrove Enhancement project, habitat enhancement, access and benefitsharing of genetic resources, etc. Her current official duties cover being the National Focal Point for the Convention on Biological Diversity, a Governing Board member of the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity, a member of the Asia Pacific Centre for Environmental Law’s Advisory Committee, a member of the Biophilic Cities Network’s Advisory Board, etc. Lena obtained her M. Sc. from McGill University. From 1981 to 1987, Lena collaborated with Malaysian State Governments to develop Conservation Strategies at the state level. For her PhD from Imperial College, she worked on the design of cost-effective chemotherapeutic soil-transmitted parasite control strategies for an urban slum community in Kampung Pandan, Kuala Lumpur. Lena has published scientific papers and chapters in books on conservation biology, ecology, parasitology and women and the environment.