Introduction
The concepts and legal precedents of biocultural rights and Biocultural
Community Protocols carry transformational potential and noteworthy
momentum in general, and within agrobiodiversity governance in particular.
Yet, they face a number of logistical and ideological obstacles, which this edited
volume explores. This chapter addresses the contested sovereignties at work
and at odds in encoding cosmologically grounded biocultural protections into
contemporary national and international governance systems still beholden to
settler colonial scales of reference. In particular, this chapter focuses on the
U.S., a nation-state emblematic for its colonial settler racial capitalism and (neo)
liberalist orientation as well as for the robust diversity of indigenous, African
diaspora, and local community biocultural heritages and agrarian resurgences
that have long been placed therein. The chapter references biocultural rights
invocations far beyond North America because these have the potential to
inform and inspire broader political engagement with Biocultural Protocols
in the U.S. context. The U.S. has long played an obstructionist role in international biodiversity negotiations, as the sole holdout to the Convention on
Biological Diversity (CBD, which 196 other countries have ratified). The U.S.
did recently ratify the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for
Food and Agriculture (Treaty), but what does this official affirmation mean?
How do the ethics and premise of biocultural rights and community protocols
circulate in the lands and waterways falling under the U.S. jurisdictions, and to
what degree do they influence the U.S. involvement in the Treaty? How do the
contradictions of representation (and lack thereof ) in this U.S. case study shed
light on the broader tensions of international liberalism and multilateralism and
the related coloniality of intellectual property regimes?
5
FROM OBSTRUCTION TO
DECOLONIZATION?
Contested Sovereignty, the Seed Treaty, and
Biocultural Rights in the U.S./Turtle Island
and Beyond
Garrett Graddy-Lovelace
1
DOI: 10.4324/9781003172642-6
The concepts and legal precedents of biocultural rights and Biocultural
Community Protocols carry transformational potential and noteworthy
momentum in general, and within agrobiodiversity governance in particular.
Yet, they face a number of logistical and ideological obstacles, which this edited
volume explores. This chapter addresses the contested sovereignties at work
and at odds in encoding cosmologically grounded biocultural protections into
contemporary national and international governance systems still beholden to
settler colonial scales of reference. In particular, this chapter focuses on the
U.S., a nation-state emblematic for its colonial settler racial capitalism and (neo)
liberalist orientation as well as for the robust diversity of indigenous, African
diaspora, and local community biocultural heritages and agrarian resurgences
that have long been placed therein. The chapter references biocultural rights
invocations far beyond North America because these have the potential to
inform and inspire broader political engagement with Biocultural Protocols
in the U.S. context. The U.S. has long played an obstructionist role in international biodiversity negotiations, as the sole holdout to the Convention on
Biological Diversity (CBD, which 196 other countries have ratified). The U.S.
did recently ratify the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for
Food and Agriculture (Treaty), but what does this official affirmation mean?
How do the ethics and premise of biocultural rights and community protocols
circulate in the lands and waterways falling under the U.S. jurisdictions, and to
what degree do they influence the U.S. involvement in the Treaty? How do the
contradictions of representation (and lack thereof ) in this U.S. case study shed
light on the broader tensions of international liberalism and multilateralism and
the related coloniality of intellectual property regimes?
5
FROM OBSTRUCTION TO
DECOLONIZATION?
Contested Sovereignty, the Seed Treaty, and
Biocultural Rights in the U.S./Turtle Island
and Beyond
Garrett Graddy-Lovelace
1
DOI: 10.4324/9781003172642-6