What are the key international policy positions addressing intellectual property and human genetic material?
The patenting of human genetic material is a controversial topic that has attracted attention from policymakers at the international level. Presently, there is a vast corpus of normative documents on this topic. Moreover, renowned international organisations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Human Genome Organization (HUGO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have also taken positions and produced recommendations, guidelines or other normative documents pertaining to this topic. These documents deal with the variety of issues associated with the use of certain intellectual property rights such as research tool patents, patents on genetic diagnostic tests and the exclusive licensing of these patents. They also address the question of the patentability of living and higher life forms. Examples of such international documents are: • The Organisation for Economic
