Publication

Americas Sustainability Issues

Biodiversity, Indigenous Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights

Description

The current Americas integration process is embarked on trade, environmental and social issues, as manifested in the declaration of principles of 1994 Miami Summit, where sustainability assumes an important role. However, this attempt has essentially been pushed for a free trade agenda as the focal way to reach hemispheric integration, beyond NAFTA, and other important sustainable elements have been its importance reduced.

The latter is causing asymmetrical unification in the region. If hemispheric integration and social cohesion are congruent in building the new agenda, sustainability appears to be an important tool in reorienting perspectives. In that case, interconnections of biodiversity, indigenous knowledge and intellectual property rights, as presented in this paper, appear as an exercise to unite environmental, social and trade related issues. The latter aims to illustrate that a proper hemispheric integration needs to be unified in a sustainable manner.

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