Journal of Intellectual Property Rights

Uday Shankar ¹, Tapas K. Bandopadhaya ¹, Chandrika Mehta ¹

Affiliations
1 Indian Institute of Technology Kharagur, Kharagpur, West Bengal 721 302, IN

Abstract

Mindless exploitation of nature has caused immense damage to human environment. Human activity through technological interventions has contributed to global warming. The incremental rise of temperature has not only threatened the life of individual but also questioned the role of technology in bringing the development. Climate change has thrown a challenge on the scientists/inventors to commit to environment-friendly technology. Realizing the potential damage from climate change, the government world-over, primarily from the developed economy, started investing upon climate friendly technology. Clean energy technology is made subject to a variety of intellectual property protections. Consequently, the exclusive usage of the technology remained with the developed economy leaving behind three-fourth of humanity to deal with the challenges of climate change on their own. Nature knows no boundaries, thus, the effort to mitigate adverse impact upon should not be mortgaged to rich and resourceful. The obligation to employ environment friendly technologies should be made non-negotiable and to be made available from North to South. However, the rigour regime to protect intellectual property brings in challenge for developing nations to import and deploy the green technology for development activities. Comity of Nations has accepted the fact of global warming, natural as well as anthropogenic. The United Nations Convention on Framework Convention on Climate Change bears the testimony of the commitment of the international community to combat the “change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.” Proponents of IP present a facilitative IP regime as a condition precedent to innovate and develop new clean energy technologies. Whereas opponents of IP finds, the exclusion rights to patent holders as a bottleneck to access the technology. Climate change poses significant threat to the rights to life, adequate food, water, health, adequate housing, and self-determination, while also highlighting the particular impacts on highly vulnerable groups such as women, children, and indigenous peoples (OHCHR, 2009). The issue of access to the technology to contain greenhouse emissions should be seen through the prism of human rights in order to obligate state to address climate change crisis.

Keywords

International Council on Human Rights Policy Report, Climate Change, Human Rights, World Health Organization, Convention on the Rights of the Child, Green House Gases, The Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

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