Epistemic injustice: intellectual property, biodiversity and traditional knowledge

This chapter explores the challenges associated with the biopiracy of Indigenous knowledge that may be characterised and theorised as ‘epistemic injustice’. Intellectual property rights are often problematic for Indigenous peoples because they privilege utilitarian claims over Indigenous knowledges. Intellectual property enables the existence of the public domain, which situates Indigenous knowledge in ways that perpetuate epistemic injustice. Indigenous knowledge and innovations are typically generated in relational cultural contexts. However, when Indigenous knowledge is appropriated by researchers and companies, who behave as economic ‘free-riders’ through filing patents, or other intellectual property rights, it isolates the knowledge from Indigenous customary domains, from the specificity, integrity and complexity of its cultural context. In so doing it privileges the instrumental value and ignores the epistemic agency of Indigenous peoples. This chapter problematises intellectual property, particularly patents, through a discussion of the flawed ways in which they are justified and conceptualised. It makes reference to the policy challenges of achieving some of the SDG targets relating to ‘access and benefit-sharing’ (ABS) for biodiversity, such as Target 15.6 from life on land, and Target 2.5 from zero hunger. We use examples from Australia and the Pacific of the policy challenges relating to ABS to highlight these epistemic injustices across complex legal geographies from local to global scales.