The New Voyages of the Santa María: Indigenous People and the (Post-)Colonial Order of Intellectual Property

Abstract

As a contribution to the Cambridge Intellectual Property and Information Law monograph series, the Australian law professor Peter Drahos engages with the issue of indigenous knowledge within an internationally regulated but nationally compromised intellectual property order. The author provides a broad, empirically well-based discussion of the struggle of indigenous people for their knowledge resources. Hereby they confront several problems while dealing with a (post-)colonial intellectual property order. While interesting and recommendable for detailing those frictions, the book disappoints in providing analysis or solutions merely within economic determinism, Western property order, and capitalist development.