The Protection of Taonga Plants and Māori Knowledge in the Plant Variety Rights System of Aotearoa New Zealand.
This seminar will discuss the changes adopted in the 2022 overhaul of the plant variety rights system and how they may operate once the law is fully implemented. In doing so, the seminar will consider whether the PVR Act fulfils the Treaty promise of tino rangatiratanga.
The discussion is based on recent research involving both doctrinal analysis of the PVR Act, and an intellectual property landscape analysis. This latter methodology reveals how plant variety rights systems – both within Aotearoa and overseas – have been used by entities without Māori ancestry to assert ownership claims to varieties of taonga plants in the past.
The seminar argues that while some of the changes made in the PVR Act support the exercise of partial Māori authority in relation to taonga, it remains to be seen whether tino rangatiratanga can be fully achieved in the New Zealand plant variety rights system.
Dr David J Jefferson (he/him) is a Senior Lecturer Above the Bar at the University of Canterbury School of Law, where he teaches Environmental Law, Land Law, and Intellectual Property. David’s research covers a range of issues related to biodiversity conservation, biotechnology regulation, intellectual property in the agricultural and food sectors, ecosystem rights laws, and the protection of Indigenous knowledge systems. He holds a PhD in Law from the University of Queensland and a JD from the University of California, Davis.
