Global Scientific Research Commons Under the Nagoya Protocol : Governing Pools of Microbial Genetic Resources

This chapter explores new opportunities offered by the Nagoya Protocol for global sharing of basic knowledge assets for scientific research. Two major institutional models dominate this debate, the first one envisioning contractual negotiations and exclusive ownership rights and the second one favouring public domain-like conditions and non-exclusive property right regimes. This chapter compares these models in the field of microbiology, concluding that public-domain like conditions for access to basic knowledge assets and a broad interpretation of the notion of non-commercial use are both possible within the framework of the Protocol and necessary for the pursuit of global scientific research