Hegemonic trips: World trade, intellectual property and biodiversity

Abstract

The attempt to establish uniform global intellectual property rights over living material is a hegemonic project driven by the biotechnology industry with its complex articulations of molecular biology, agro‐chemical transnational corporations and state intervention. Hegemony needs to be understood through a blend of Gramscian and regime theory as a contingent construction of particular interests into an apparently universal good. The GATT has provided a fertile terrain for the hegemonic ambitions of the biotechnology industry, even though intellectual property has been a recent import into the world trade talks.