Intellectual Property over Seeds versus Civil Liberties

Birgit Müller (1, 2)

1 IIAC - Institut interdisciplinaire d'anthropologie du contemporain
2 LAIOS - Laboratoire d'anthropologie des institutions et des organisations sociales

This article draws attention to the fundamental contradiction between civil liberties and intellectual property rights attributed to and transported by living self-reproducing organisms. Intellectual property over seeds establishes fields of ownership that crosscut and contradict property over land and labour that John Locke regarded as the basis for civil liberties. With the seed whose cells carry a patented transgenic seed a new bundle of power is introduced into the field. It determines what farmers harvest, how they sell, whether they reseed their harvest, how they keep their books, taking precedence over the right of property over land and labour.

Mots clés: intellectual property; seeds; power; governance

Domaines: Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie

Birgit Müller. Intellectual Property over Seeds versus Civil Liberties. 2013. ⟨hal-00814901⟩