This is a continuation of our “Cultural Property Around the Web”-series that collects articles and news on cultural property.
- The Economist has an article on UNESCO’s World Heritage list and the conflict between the agencies’ principles and its members wishes.
- The African Regional Intellectual Property Organization’s (ARIPO) member states adopted a new legal instrument that seeks to protect African traditional knowledge and folklore. A press release by Aripo can be found here, Afro-IP has links to the PDF version of the “Swakopmund Protocol on the Protection of Traditional Knowledge and Expressions of Folklore”.
- Also on Afro-IP, reports on how Ghana seeks to prosecute the illicit use of folklore and RSA’s “Traditional Knowledge Bill”.
- On the website of The Guardian, Fiona Macmillan (School of Law at Birkbeck, University of London and Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Roma Tre) writes on “How big corporations are blocking reform of intellectual property law”, including a paragraph on cultural rights.
- In an attempt to prevent the demolition of historical buildings in Istanbul’s Tarlabaşı neighborhood, an association of renters and owners turned to UNESCO’s World Heritage Programme, according to a report in Hurriyet Daily News.
- India moves to patent yoga poses in bid to protect traditional knowledge (The Telegraph, among many others), and we will look at what’s behind the buzz in a number of upcoming posts on this blog.