Picart on Law In and As Culture: Intellectual Property, Minority Rights, and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Caroline Joan "Kay" S. Picart has published Law In and As Culture: Intellectual Property, Minority Rights, and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Rowman & Littlefield, for Fairleigh Dickinson Press, 2016). Here is a description of the contents from the publisher's website.

There are two oppositional narratives in relation to telling the story of indigenous peoples and minorities in relation to globalization and intellectual property rights. The first, the narrative of Optimism, is a story of the triumphant opening of brave new worlds of commercial integration and cultural inclusion. The second, the narrative of Fear, is a story of the endangerment, mourning, and loss of a traditional culture. While the story of Optimism deploys a rhetoric of commercial mobilization and “innovation,” the story of Fear emphasizes the rhetoric of preserving something “pure” and “traditional” that is “dying.” Both narratives have compelling rhetorical force, and actually need each other, in order to move their opposing audiences into action. However, as Picart shows, the realities behind these rhetorically framed political parables are more complex than a simple binary. Hence, the book steers a careful path between hope rather than unbounded Optimism, and caution, rather than Fear, in exploring how law functions in and as culture as it contours the landscape of intellectual property rights, as experienced by indigenous peoples and minorities. Picart uses, among a variety of tools derived from law, critical and cultural studies, anthropology and communication, case studies to illustrate this approach. She tracks the fascinating stories of the controversies surrounding the ownership of a Taiwanese folk song; the struggle over control of the Mapuche’s traditional land in Chile against the backdrop of Chile’s drive towards modernization; the collaboration between the Kani tribe in India and a multinational corporation to patent an anti-fatigue chemical agent; the drive for respect and recognition by Australian Aboriginal artists for their visual expressions of folklore; and the challenges American women of color such as Josephine Baker and Katherine Dunham faced in relation to the evolving issues of choreography, improvisation and copyright. The book also analyzes the cultural conflicts that result from these encounters between indigenous populations or minorities and majority groups, reflects upon the ways in which these conflicts were negotiated or resolved, both nationally and internationally, and carefully explores proposals to mediate such conflicts.

Call for Papers: International Journal for the Semiotics of Law

Call for Papers from Anne Wagner, Editor in Chief, International Journal for the Semiotics of Law

Special Issue Call for Papers “Signs in and of place: Indigenous issues in legal semiotics”

Colonization is both a contest of force and a struggle over semiotics. Signs of possession (such as cultivation or fences), representations of entitlement (savages and empty maps) and linguistic replacement (naming places, people and things, enforcing education in colonial languages) were part of the arsenal of colonial law. Semiotics is also central in the modern era of the recognition of Indigenous rights, through translation of Indigenous relationships to territories and social and political organization into the language of property and self-government, as well as in the resignification of the place of law (and the law of places) in the discourses of nationhood, resource development and environmental justice.

This special issue for the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law invites high quality contributions from scholars of all disciplines, in English or French, that undertake rhetorical, hermeneutic, sociolinguistic, discourse or semiotic analyses of Indigenous issues. Of particular interest are papers discussing Indigenous law, philosophy, art, music, narrative, ceremony, languages and acts of care for the land.

Guest Editor: Kirsten Anker (Faculty of Law, McGill University, Canada) Submissions: send paper proposal (max. 400 words) by 30 June 2014 to kirsten.anker@mcgill.ca

Selection: selected authors will be invited by 31 July 2014 to submit a full paper Final submissions: papers (max. 9,000 words) to be sent by 15 December 2014 for double-blind peer review Publication: it is anticipated that papers will be published in Volume 28/2 of the IJSL (June 2015)

Publication spéciale : Appel à contributions « L’empreinte des lieux : la sémiotique et les enjeux autochtones » La colonisation est à la fois un concours de force et une lutte sémiotique. L’occupation (pensons à la culture de champs, ou à l’érection de clôtures), l’appropriation sans vergogne (des « sauvages », de l’espace « vide ») et le remplacement linguistique (nommer les lieux, les personnes et les choses, instruire dans les langues coloniales) faisaient partie de l’arsenal du droit colonial. Aujourd’hui, la sémiotique joue toujours un rôle fondamental dans la reconnaissance des droits autochtones qui se fait par la traduction de la relation que les peuples autochtones entretiennent avec leurs territoires ancestraux et leur organisation sociale et politique, en termes de propriété et auto gouvernance. Elle est également essentielle à l’élaboration d’une nouvelle manière de comprendre le lieu du droit (et droit des lieux) dans les discours actuels de la « nation », du développement des ressources naturelles et de la justice environnementale.

Cette publication spéciale de la Revue internationale de Sémiotique Juridique invite les chercheurs de haut niveau et de tous les domaines, qui s’intéressent aux enjeux autochtones d’un point de vue critique (analyse du discours, rhétorique, herméneutique, sociolinguistique, sémiotique) à proposer des textes en anglais et en français. Un intérêt particulier sera accordé aux textes qui discutent les perspectives et les pratiques autochtones, le droit, la philosophie, l’art, la musique, les récits, les cérémonies, les langues et les différents rapports aux territoires.

Éditrice invitée : Kirsten Anker (Faculté de Droit, Université McGill, Canada) Soumissions : envoyer une proposition de texte (400 mots max.) avant le 30 juin 2014 à kirsten.anker@mcgill.ca Sélection : les auteurs sélectionnés seront invités à soumettre leur texte au plus tard le 31 juillet 2014 Soumission finale : les textes finaux (9,000 mots max.) devraient être envoyés au plus tard le 15 décembre 2014 pour soumission au comité de lecture

Publication : il est anticipé que les articles seront publiés dans le volume 28/2 du RISJ (juin 2015)

Anne Wagner, Ph. D., Associate Professor, Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale (France) Centre Droit et Perspectives du Droit, Equipe René Demogue - Université de Lille II (France) Research Professor, China University of Political Science and Law (Beijing - China)

http://fr.linkedin.com/in/annewagner http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-90-481-9322-6/page/1

 Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - http://www.springer.com/law/journal/11196 Series Editor, Law, Language and Communication - Ashgate Publisher (http://www.ashgate.com/Default.aspx?page=3916) President of the International Roundtables for the Semiotics of Law - http://www.semioticsoflaw.com/

Colonialism, Cultural Assumptions, Property Rights, and Land Law Reform

Robert Home, Anglia Ruskin University, has published ‘Culturally Unsuited to Property Rights?’: Colonial Land Laws and African Societies at 40 Journal of Law and Society 403 (2013). Here is the abstract.

Hernando de Soto, advocate of central registers of land rights, raised the possibility of Africans being culturally unsuited to property rights. This article argues that sub‐Saharan Africa's high proportion of tribal/communal land (as distinguished from private and public/state land) results from a combination of geography, history, and population distribution. External colonial rule created a dual system of land tenure that restrained private property rights in the tribal/communal land areas. The research draws upon archival evidence from the colonial land tenure panel chaired by Lord Hailey (1945–50). The finding is not that Africans are inherently culturally unsuited to property ownership, but that colonialism reinforced pluralistic forms of property rights, which create particular challenges to land law reform. 

The full text is not available for download from SSRN.

Indigenous Sovereignty: A Literature Review

Jennifer L. Archer, Archer Law Corporation, has published Sovereignty as a Social Construct: A Literature Review of Indigenous Peoples’ Perspectives.

The concept of sovereignty is both culturally and historically dependent. Sovereignty evolved within the Western legal tradition as a tool to legitimize imperial conquest over Indigenous peoples, territories and resources. Indigenous peoples, as non-state actors in the international community of sovereigns, have found themselves defined by this narrow and often-violent conception of power, which, at its heart, is contrary to Indigenous peoples’ values and epistemology. This has made it difficult for Indigenous peoples to engage or assert Western sovereignty without also experiencing a form of cultural and epistemological assimilation. An understanding and respect for the values that form the basis of Indigenous sovereignty can ultimately allow for the possibility of genuine social and legal reconciliation within the international legal system.

This literature review allows current narratives regarding Indigenous sovereignty to provide an emerging counterpoint to the dominant legal discourse in order to demonstrate that sovereignty is ultimately a man-made construct. Once we acknowledge sovereignty as a social construct, we can undertake to (re)construct new laws in a manner that no longer legitimizes the domination of imperialist values over Indigenous values.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link. 

Traditional Property Law and Indigenous Culture

Susan Elizabeth Farran, Northumbria University & University of the South Pacific, has published The ‘Unnatural’ Legal Framing of Traditional Knowledge and Forms of Cultural Expression. Here is the abstract.

The consequences of social and economic development in Pacific Island States are far reaching and on a number of levels illustrate the head-on collision of endogamous and exogamous forces. This is particularly evident in the ways in which manifestations of cultural property and traditional knowledge are harnessed and regulated. Laws inspired by western liberal thinking and capitalist economies see intellectual effort as giving rise to property rights and their related remedies, which are premised on individualism, exclusion and the commodity value of knowledge and creativity and its physical manifestation. Traditional, indigenous perceptions are however different. While knowledge may be power it is not always exclusive, individual or commercial. Cultural property creates networks of exchange and reflects continuums between the past and the present, between people and generations, and people and places. Increasingly there is pressure internally and externally to exploit and use cultural property and traditional knowledge for development objectives. Linked to this is a real or perceived need to adopt or incorporate a range of legal measures. Many of these are reflections of the colonial past of Pacific islands and an illustration of the neo-colonial present. There are however some attempts to moderate this onslaught and to take steps to shape the regulatory framework in a way that bridges the traditional and the modern.
This paper considers the challenges facing Pacific island states seeking to articulate laws which meet the demands of modernity and satisfy the values of tradition. It looks in particular at the problems posed by unfamiliar legal concepts and the consequences of trying to bring traditional knowledge and cultural property within the framework of laws originating from very different cultural and normative backgrounds and concludes with a critical assessment of the contemporary legal picture.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link. 

Maori Heritage and IP Law

Susan Corbett, Victoria University of Wellington, has published Māori Cultural Heritage and Copyright Law: A Balancing Exercise at 6 New Zealand Intellectual Property Journal 916 (2012). Here is the abstract.

The digitisation of both traditional Māori cultural heritage and also more recent items of Māori provenance held in the collections of New Zealand museums, was the subject of a recent research project funded by the New Zealand Law Foundation. This article considers the practices of museums in regard to the digitisation of collection items of Māori provenance and analyses them in the context of the relevant legal and policy environment in New Zealand; in essence an environment that is comprised of, respectively, the Copyright Act 1994, the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and the theory of cultural property law.

Download the article from SSRN at the link. 

Indigenous Peoples and the Protection of Intellectual Property: The Case of the Zia

Stephanie B. Turner, Yale Law School, is publishing The Case of the Zia: Moving Beyond Intellectual Property Laws To Protect Cultural Rights, in the Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property. Here is the abstract.

This Article focuses on an ongoing dispute in trademark law: the case of the Zia. Located near Albuquerque, New Mexico, this Native American pueblo has been using its sacred sun symbol in religious ceremonies since 1200 C.E. The symbol now appears on the New Mexico State flag, letterhead, and license plate, and on commercial products ranging from chemical fertilizers to portable toilets. The tribe claims that the State appropriated the symbol without permission in 1925, and that the continued use of the symbol by various parties dilutes its sacred meaning and disparages the tribe in violation of Section 2(a) of the Trademark Act. This Article tells the Zia story, focusing on the harms the tribe faces when others appropriate its symbol and the possible solutions. It concludes by suggesting that indigenous groups like the Zia should move beyond intellectual property laws in the fight to protect their cultural rights.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.