Symposium on Traditional Cultural Expression and International Law
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Draft Programme
8.45 Registration
9am: Welcome to Monash
Professor Rae Frances, Dean of Arts, Monash University, will give the welcome to Monash.
Acknowledgement of country
Lynette Russell - Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies (CAIS)
9.20 Introduction
Professor Johanna Gibson – Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property Law and Director, Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute, University of London:
Development of WIPO draft protocols for the protection of traditional cultural expression
9.30 Keynote
Professor Rosemary J. Coombe – Chair in Communications, Law and Cultural Studies, York University Canada:
Neoliberal Cartographies of Culture
This paper will explore the hypothesis that international legal instruments (both treaties and “soft law” declarations) that contain cultural rights provisions increasingly shape the activities of governments, NGOs, and indigenous peoples as well as the nature of social movements that traverse local, regional, national and transnational scales of activity. The Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Agreement (TRIPs), Agenda 21, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) effort to find new means of protecting traditional cultural expressions, the Draft Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the World Bank’s “Indigenous Knowledge for Development” program, and the UNESCO Instrument on Cultural Diversity are all examples of “global” policy-making that are reshaping “local” social relations amongst people who come to understand themselves as collective social actors with distinctive cultural identities and particular relationships to both territories and cultural forms. At the same time, people struggle to have their own understandings of what it means to be indigenous, have a culture, or a place-based group self-understanding in an international arena dominated by European liberal and romantic preconceptions, as well as unexamined assumptions about the primacy of market relations.
How have indigenous peoples taken advantage of a global ideological recognition of them as natural environmental stewards? When do so-called “non-governmental” environmental organisations exercise new forms of “governmentality” and to what forms of accountability do they yield? If, under neoliberal forms of governmentality “communities” are newly privileged as actors who bear culture as a resource or, in international legal terms “embody traditional lifestyles” (Convention on Biological Diversity), through what agencies and with what resources do these newly ‘empowered’ communities resist assimilation into market citizenship and assert control over the directions of their development? These questions will be addressed comparatively.
10.30 Morning tea
11am Session 1: What is ‘traditional cultural expression’?
All cultures influence one another, and therefore the idea of traditional cultural expression may be considered ambiguous. One way traditional cultural expression is ambiguous is in the definition of ‘a culture’ or ‘a cultural group’. Another way it is ambiguous is in terms of what counts as ‘traditional’. For example, the style of dot paintings that developed in the central desert regions of Australia may be understood as a recent departure from traditional painting forms of the region in response to a need to protect secrecy; and a didgeridoo may be an instrument within contemporary ‘classical’ music. Should ‘traditional cultural expression’ refer to style, or to materials and methods of production, or to subject matter? What kind of entity or group should have rights in traditional cultural expression, and what should they have control over? What cultural influences or borrowing should be permissible?
Maryrose Casey – Lecturer, Drama and Theatre Studies – Monash University
Christoph Antons – Professor of Law and Director, Centre for Comparative Law and Development Studies in Asia and the Pacific – University of Wollongong
Vicki Couzens - Visual artist
12.30 Lunch
1.30 Session 2: Protecting spiritual values
The draft protocols are focussed on protecting the ‘spiritual values’ of traditional cultural expression. This assumes that spiritual values of any specific symbol are static, as well as clear, and limits the freedom of expression of other people within a religious tradition to reinterpret symbols and their values. It also restricts the ability of other people to make meaning for themselves through exploring other religious possibilities. How do we protect spiritual values without limiting the development of religious ideas, or restricting freedom of religion?
Johanna Gibson – Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute
Elizabeth Burns Coleman – Postdoctoral Fellow, Communications and Philosophy Sections – Monash University
John Bradley – Senior Lecturer, Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies – Monash
3.00 Afternoon tea
3.30 Session 3: Ownership, control and exploitation
Law may have a role in protecting traditional cultural expression from abuse and creating conditions for agreement about access. However, it is difficult to do this, certainly on an international scale, without abstraction and commodification. Too broad a definition may enable nation states and other entities to restrict freedom of expression. What kind of entity should have rights and should they be understood as property? How can local values and customs be respected, especially the spiritual and sacred, while recognising that some uses are permissible? Currently, the draft protocol lists various legal possibilities. What laws might accommodate difference and mediate conflict?
Peter Drahos – Professor of Law, and Luigi Palombi, Research Fellow, Centre for Governance of Knowledge and Development, College of Asia and the Pacific – Australian National University
Richard J. Frankland, singer/songwriter, author, film maker
Christopher Arup – Professor of Business Law and Taxation – Monash University