What is an 'Indigenous Right to Intellectual Property'?

Abstract

This article addresses the question of whether an “Indigenous right to intellectual property” has any legal meaning. It does so predominantly in response to Valmaine Toki’s article in this journal ([2015] I.P.Q. 370), which deduces such a right in New Zealand by looking at the Treaty of Waitangi and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Acknowledging that Indigenous concerns and interests in their intangible cultural heritage are both real and relevant for the intellectual property discourse (among many), this article argues that New Zealand does not need to rely on an “Indigenous right to intellectual property” because of existing local mechanisms that are capable of dealing with the local circumstances.

Keywords: Culture, Indigenous peoples, Intellectual property, New Zealand, Traditional knowledge

JEL Classification: K11, K33, K39