The Neem Tree Patent: International Conflict over the Commodification of Life
![handle is hein.journals/bcic22 and id is 285 raw text is: The Neem Tree Patent: International
Conflict over the Commodification of Life
Emily Marden*
INTRODUCTION
Biotechnology has revolutionized the pace of innovation in the life
sciences by allowing scientists efficient means of isolating and altering
individual traits. For example, in agriculture, innovators have pro-
duced plants custom-designed for resistance to specific pests, bacteria
altered to bypass growth-limiting natural soil cycles, and natural pesti-
cides created to compete against the more toxic synthesized ones.2
Scientists even claim to have formulated a tree with a higher cellu-
lose content which will make future paper production more efficient.
Biotechnology has had similarly spectacular effects in the pharmaceu-
tical industry. There, researchers have already produced a raft of new
drugs, promising to treat everything from cancer to hypertension.3
In large part, this wave of innovation has been fueled by material
gathered from biologically diverse regions of the globe in a process
generally known as bio-prospecting. Bio-prospectors are the modern
incarnation of earlier prospectors: they travel to untapped geo-
graphical regions with the aim of amassing either local knowledge of
useful biological applications or genetic samples from plants, animals,
* Associate, Sidley & Austin, Washington, D.C. A.B., Biology, Harvard University; M.Phil.,
History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University, A.M., History of Science, Harvard
University;J.D., New York University. The author would like to thank Roger A. Frie for his critical
insight and support in the writing of this article.
I Biotechnology is not an easy term to define even for experts working within the industry.
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) defines it as any technological application that
uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or
processes for specific use. Convention on Biological Diversity, June 5, 1992, art. 2, 31 I.L.M. 818,
823 [hereinafter CBD]. Following this usage, I am using the term herein to include any innova-
tion that uses biological knowledge as its starting point. I realize that this usage is broader than
common American usage which refers solely to practices using recombinant DNA techniques.
2 See SHELDON KRIMsKY & ROGER P. WRUBEL, AGRICULTURAL BIOTECHNOLOGY AND THE ENvi-
RONMENT 167-68 (1996); see also Don't Eat Your Veggies, GRAss ROOTS & PUB. POL'Y (FOUND. ON
ECON. TRENDS), Fall 1995, at 8; Michael Pollan, Playing God, N.Y. TiMiEs, Oct. 25, 1998.
3 See generally Curtis M. Horton, Protecting Biodiversiy and Cultural Diversity Under Intellectual
Property Law: Toward a New International System, 10J. ENVTL. L. & LITIG. 1 (1995).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/bcic22&div=17&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The Neem Tree Patent: International Conflict over the Commodification of Life
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