I remember a very eminent lawyer explaining. to me, the difference between the
laws of any country and agreed international law.
The former is phrased in order to close off all predicted loopholes. The latter
is phrased to include all the loopholes that each participating country wants.
john gorman
----- Original Message -----
From: Fred Zimmerman
To: Andrew Lockley ; geoengineering
Sent: Monday, June 10, 2013 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [geo] Aladdin Diakun Gives Public Lecture On Geoengineering And
IP Law | Global Catastrophic Risk Institute
This is an interesting approach which brings to mind a few thoughts.
1. Heaven help us if we are relying on IP law for governance. IP is a
woefully distorted regime that in practice has little to do with its ostensible
objectives. It is also not well accdepted outside the OECD.
2. There are a great many other international phenomena that are poorly
governed and lack coherent topic-specific regimes. Are they all governed by IP
too? Or do other bodies of law operate? How are we to decide which body of law
applies to a particular inchoate regime?
3. Common law legal systems already have well developed mechanisms for
"generating" law where it is not provided by legislation by elaborating from
existing examples ("common law").
4. So-called customary international law is roughly the same thing.
(International lawyers, feel free to correct and amplify my remarks.) Examples
of practice generate principles or rules of international law even in the
absence of specific written law. Thus, e.g., the precautionary principle.
5. The author's conclusions are basically unremarkable. "Let's not let IP
govern geoengineering." Even the people who have filed patents say they don't
want IP to drive geoengineering. (And I take them at their word absent
evidence to the contrary).
---
Fred Zimmerman
Geoengineering IT!
Bringing together the worlds of geoengineering and information technology
GE NewsFilter: http://geoengineeringIT.net:8080
On Sat, Jun 8, 2013 at 8:35 PM, Andrew Lockley <[email protected]>
wrote:
Key point : Aladdin argued that IP law is a de facto form of governance
when there is no other meaningful legal regime, as is the case for
geoengineering
http://gcrinstitute.org/aladdin-diakun-gives-public-lecture-on-geoengineering-and-ip-law/
On Thursday 16 May, GCRI hosted an online lecture by Aladdin Diakunentitled
‘Towards the Effective Governance of Geoengineering: What Role for Intellectual
Property?’ Aladdin is an MA Candidate at the Balsillie School of International
Affairs who is researching how IP law can serve as a form of de facto
governance of geoengineering.The UK Royal Society defines geoengineering as
“the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to
counteract anthropogenic climate change.” With the atmospheric concentration of
CO2 in the atmosphere recently having reached 400ppm—higher than any point in
at least 800,000 years—and international climate change governance having shown
scant progress, geoengineering is increasingly discussed as a climate change
strategy. One branch of geoengineering is carbon dioxide removal (CDR), which
includes technologies like carbon capture and storage, afforestation, and ocean
fertilization, the latter of which was controversially tested when an American
entrepreneur dumped 100 tons of iron sulphate into the coastal waters of
British Columbia in 2012. The other branch of geoengineering is solar radiation
management (SRM), which, rather than removing CO2 from the atmosphere, lowers
the planet’s temperature by reflecting sunlight via techniques like cloud
seeding, landscape modification (e.g. painting all roofs white), and
stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI).These forms of geoengineering could help
combat the effects of climate change, but they also pose a global catastrophic
risk (GCR). For example, pretend that the United States decides to artificially
lower Earth’s temperature using SAI. As described in a recent paper by Seth
Baum, Tim Maher, and Jacob Haqq-Misra, if a pandemic, nuclear war, or some
other global catastrophe interferes with our ability to continue using SAI,
then global temperatures would rapidly increase to their natural levels,
potentially resulting in a second global catastrophe. SAI also neglects other
negative effects of runaway greenhouse gas emissions, like ocean
acidification.While no countries propose that we deploy the more exotic forms
of geoengineering right now, there is a growing call to research geoengineering
and develop international norms so that we make smart decisions down the
road.So what do patents have to do with all of this?Many people’s experience
with patents primarily consists of watching Samsung and Apple trade punches in
court over whether Apple invented rounded black rectangles or square app icons.
But under the radar, geoengineering patents are already flying off the shelves,
most of which are for carbon capture and storage (CCS) and direct sequestration
technologies, although there are also patents for ocean fertilization,
stratospheric aerosol injection, and other geoengineering technologies.Aladdin
argued that IP law is a de facto form of governance when there is no other
meaningful legal regime, as is the case for geoengineering [1]. Currently,
geoengineering patents are too broad (e.g. issued for a geoengineering
technique rather than a very specific technology) and could quickly become
gobbled up by a small group of private actors, which weakens innovation. And
not all geoengineering research is made public, meaning that private entities
could be releasing positive geoengineering research while withholding negative
research. However, a sui generis patent system, meaning one that is customized
for the unique concerns of geoengineering, could provide a flexible framework
to oversee patents, spur innovation, consider international interests, and make
sure that research is transparent and publicly available. Aladdin pointed out
that while such reform is necessary, it is far from sufficient to address all
of the complex challenges posed by geoengineering activities.During the online
lecture, we also discussed the analogues between geoengineering and other GCRs,
such as pandemics. For example, research into bioengineering and
pharmaceuticals is relatively unregulated, and negative research findings can
be concealed or falsified, which may weaken our ability to combat a pandemic.
One participant commented that a possible model to oversee research comes from
‘Cambia,’ a nonprofit based in Australia that allows private researchers to
share information without releasing it to the public, which protects the
integrity of the patent process. Another overarching issue we discussed was
social justice: the costs and benefits of GCRs are uneven, and society should
consider the impact our actions have on more vulnerable communities.Here is the
full abstract of the talk:This presentation makes the case that, owing to the
prominence of private sector activity, the absence of a comprehensive
regulatory framework, and the theoretical importance of informal governance
mechanisms, IP regimes are a crucial yet understudied component in the emerging
architecture of geoengineering governance. It further argues that, given
geoengineering’s complex challenges, IP reform is a necessary but insufficient
condition for effective governance innovation. In particular, path dependence
implies that if we wish to address the significant normative and socio-economic
challenges associated with geoengineering, we must quickly move to address IP’s
de facto governance of the field.The presentation was hosted online via Skype,
with the presentation hosted on Prezi. There were six people in the audience,
including Catherine Rhodes, a Research Fellow in Science Ethics at the
University of Manchester, and Simon Driscoll, a geoengineering expert in the
PhD program at Oxford’s Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics
sub-department. Other attendees were GCRI’s Kaitlin Buter, Mark P. Fusco, Tony
Barrett, Grant Wilson, and Seth Baum.[1] Some international instruments, like
the London Convention and Protocol and the Convention on Biological Diversity,
touch on geoengineering. See Bracmort, K., & Lattanzio, R. (2013).
‘Geoengineering: Governance and Technology Policy,’ Conressional Research
Service. www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41371.pdf
Tagged with Aladdin Diakun, geoengineering, intellectual property
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