Abstract

MARTINEZ AGUILAR, Gabriela; SESIA, Paola María  and  CAMPOS NAVARRO, Roberto. Sui Generis Protection and Intellectual Property of Traditional Medicine in Oaxaca, Mexico. Rev. mex. cienc. polít. soc [online]. 2022, vol.67, n.245, pp.231-264.  Epub Apr 21, 2023. ISSN 0185-1918.  https://doi.org/10.22201/fcpys.2448492xe.2022.245.76596.

This paper reviews the possibilities around the legal protection of traditional medicine, using examples from Oaxaca having in mind its potential application to the rest of Mexico; in order to propose practical legal tools, promote traditional medicine’s legitimate use and provide its rightful holders with some grounded options to legally defend their knowledge and practices. We offer qualitative ethnographic case studies of zapotecs, mixes and ikoots traditional healers and midwives from Oaxaca from an action-research approach supplemented with several other national and international data sources. We adjusted specific cultural elements to legal categories included in a sui generis protection scheme that promotes a legal management of traditional medicine in Mexico, beginning with Oaxaca; a management that is superior to the development of a simple public policy around this issue. We propose the construction of a Large Database of Traditional Medicine in Oaxaca as a local prototype, that in itself includes necessary and sufficient legal steps to safeguard traditional medicine against its misuse, misappropriation, and/or its illegal or inappropriate exploitation that would violate its legitimate rights holders’ intellectual property.

Keywords : traditional medicine; database; sui generis protection; intellectual property.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )