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Conference Papers

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Session CE1: Connecting to culture from an urban base: cultural expression, traditional knowledge and property rights

Discussion Panel Chair: Terri Janke

Full paper | Audio | Video | Slideshow

Abstract

Indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights are rights to cultural heritage which belong collectively to Indigenous people as part of their ongoing survival. Whilst not recognised at law, there are Indigenous cultural protocols which require recognition of source communities when knowledge and cultural expression are published and widely disseminated. ICIP rights connect cultural traditions with the owners’ of culture. Do ICIP rights allow for greater connections between urban based people and their communities? This panel will discuss the commercialization of traditional knowledge in arts and biotechnology by urban based entities

Terri Janke will be present issues from her paper Beyond guarding ground: a vision for a National Indigenous Cultural Authority, which argues for greater infrastructure facilitate consent and payment of royalties; develop standards of appropriate use to guard cultural integrity, and enforce Indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights.

Robynne Quiggin will discuss the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board’s National Indigenous Reference Group’s support for a National Indigenous Arts and Cultural Authority and the use of traditional cultural expression in new contemporary arts, music and dance.

Luigi Palombi and Peter Drahos will then draw on their work from their research project - The Sustainable Use of Australia's Biodiversity: Transfer of Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property, to focus on traditional knowledge and industrial property rights and the role of patents, trade marks and plant breeding rights.

Bios:

Terri Janke is an Indigenous arts lawyer, writer and consultant, and a member of the AIATSIS Council. A significant part of Terri’s client base involves the advancement of protection for Indigenous Austra lian people in respect of intellectual property matters. Terri has been involved in a wide number of matters in representing Indigenous composers, writers, film directors, film producers, artists, and others across many fields of the arts and culture. She has drafted documentation and special provisions in complex commercial documentation to cover cultural attribution and integrity issues for Indigenous peoples. Terri was born in Cairns, Queensland and has family connections with the Torres Strait and Cape York Peninsula (Meriam, Wuthathi & Yadaighana).

Peter Drahos is a Professor in Law and the Director of the Centre for the Governance of Knowledge and Development in the Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet), College of Asia and the Pacific , at the Australian National University , Canberra.
He currently holds a Chair in Intellectual Property at Queen Mary, University of London . His former positions include Herchel Smith Senior Research Fellow in Intellectual Property at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary, University of London and officer of the Australian Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department.
 
Peter holds degrees in law, politics and philosophy and is admitted as a barrister and solicitor.  He has published widely in law and social science journals on a variety of topics including contract, legal philosophy, telecommunications, intellectual property, trade negotiations and international business regulation.  He has worked as a consultant to government, international organizations and international NGOs.

Robynne Quiggin, BA, LLB, Graduate Diploma in Practical Legal Training, Diploma in Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property – WIPO 2003. Robynne is principal solicitor and consultant at Vincent-Quiggin Legal & Consulting Services. She is descended from the Wiradjuri people of central western NSW. Robynne works in a number of legal areas, including Indigenous intellectual and cultural property, Indigenous consumer issues, Indigenous human rights and other social justice issues. She teaches at a number of Sydney universities and is currently lecturing at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW and Warawara Department of Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University. Robynne has worked previously as a policy office for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner of the Australian Human Rights Commission and as senior researcher at Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at UTS. Robynne is a member of the Commonwealth Consumer Affairs Advisory Council (CCAAC), the National Indigenous Consumer Strategy Implementation Reference Group and the National Indigenous Arts Reference Group of the Australia Council for the Arts. Robynne is currently on the board of Gadigal Information Services (incorporating Koori Radio) and the Indigenous Consumer Assistance Network (ICAN). She is also on the Editorial Board of the Indigenous Law Bulletin, Balayi Culture, Law and Colonialism and the Journal of Indigenous Social Policy. 

Dr Luigi Palombi read law between 1977 and 1981 and economics between 1982 and 1985 at the University of Adelaide. He practiced law in Australia between 1982 and 1997, specialising in patent law and biotechnology. He led the Australian litigation team that challenged the validity of a patent which claimed isolated hepatitis C virus nucleotides and polypeptides as inventions. Having led several international patent litigation teams involving litigation in the United States as well as in the UK and Europe (including the European Patent Office), between 1997 and 2001 he advised various organisations around the world with regard to human health, biotechnology and gene related patents. Between 2001 and 2004 he undertook his PhD candidature (The Patenting of Biological Materials in the Context of TRIPS) at the University of New South Wales. After he was awarded his doctorate in 2005, he consulted to Minter Ellison, Australia’s largest law firm, in biotechnology patents. Since 2006 he has headed the Genetic Sequence Right Project at the Australian National University and 2007 he and his colleague at the Regulatory Institutions Network at the ANU, Prof Peter Drahos, were awarded a three year Australian Research Council Discovery Project Grant entitled The Sustainable Use of Australia’s Biodiversity: Transfer of Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property. He has delivered invited papers and lectures in patent law at international legal conferences and meetings. His has written on various aspects of patent law and gene patents and Edward Elgar (London, New York) and Scribe (Melbourne) have published his first book, Gene Cartels: Biotech Patents in the Age of Free Trade, simultaneously in hardback and paperback.

Terri Janke is an Indigenous arts lawyer, writer and consultant. A significant part of Terri’s client base involves the advancement of protection for Indigenous Austra lian people in respect of intellectual property matters. Terri has been involved in a wide number of matters in representing Indigenous composers, writers, film directors, film producers, artists, and others across many fields of the arts and culture. She has drafted documentation and special provisions in complex commercial documentation to cover cultural attribution and integrity issues for Indigenous peoples. Terri was born in Cairns, Queensland and has family connections with the Torres Strait and Cape York Peninsula (Meriam, Wuthathi & Yadaighana).