Intellectual Property and the Anthropocene

The 15th Annual Workshop of the International Society for the History and Theory of Intellectual Property (ISHTIP) will be hosted by Boston University School of Law at Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States.

We will explore themes connected to problems related to global environmental changes related to human-centered domination of the planet. The concept is not without controversy – when it began, its obfuscation of differences among humans with diverging claims and impacts, its embedded human-nature dualism. These questions, and the roles of technological changes, industrialization and capitalism, as well as contested views on “progress” anchor debates about our planet in climate crisis. We are especially interested in papers that explore historical and contemporary manifestations of these themes, as well as others concerning:

• Decentering human creativity and innovation (who is the beneficiary of IP? What do these terms mean if not describing human behaviour? Is law a human-only system or does/can it serve: Other animals? Machines? Flora/Fauna?)
• Resource scarcity and allocation; open research and competition levers; tensions between production and distribution functions (how are various IP regimes and concomitant institutions devoted to or agnostic about distributive justice claims and diffusion goals?)
• Geographical disparities regarding global crisis (e.g., equatorial and global south; Indigenous impacts); is there or should there be a refocus on the IP systems of the places or peoples most affected by climate change?
• Green-washing, ESG (Environmental and Social Governance) and IP (how has branding and speech about climate shaped corporate behavior, and creative and innovative practices? How is that behavior regulated by IP or IP-adjacent regimes?)
• Critical Infrastructure Innovation (e.g., national security, telecom, surveillance, energy, nutrition; tensions between national and international systems amidst increasing nationalism on a planet in need of global solidarity)
• Anachronism of state-based jurisdiction (what roles do borders play today when concerning the development, diffusion, and effect of creative and innovative work?)
• Is democracy and its goal of furthering human flourishing – by supporting individual rights (speech, freedom of religion, privacy, human equality and dignity) and political representation – the appropriate governing system to address the planet’s climate crisis? What about IP is particularly “democratic” (or not) and may be (ill)suited to address the climate crisis? Are some IP regimes more critical than others to address the democratic deficit? Might IP play a role developing neighbouring or critical new rights for the 21st century to ameliorate harms from the climate crisis: rights to health, environment, rights of nature, animal rights?
• Does IP’s history and practice of alternative institutions of governance inform our thinking about solving complex, transnational problems such as planetary climate crisis (e.g., patent pools, cultural commons, agencies/specialized adjudicative institutions)?