2024 Theses Master's

Who Owns the World’s Food Supply? A Human Rights Assessment of the Relationship Between Intellectual Property Rights and Food Insecurity Across the Global South with a Focus on the African Continent

Mehari, Makda

This thesis is an assessment of the relationship between intellectual property rights and food insecurity across the Global South, with a focus on the African continent. It focuses on the intersections of trade policy and agricultural production, through the narrow lens of intellectual property rights (IPRs)’ applications to agricultural technologies – particularly genetically modified seeds and [agro]chemical inputs.

The aim of this preliminary research is to determine whether – and if so, how – IPRs contribute to food insecurity, and assess the human rights implications of such contributions. This is achieved through an in-depth review of the histories of the IPR and human rights regimes in relation to one another, and ongoing phenomena’s (i.e. the climate crisis) impact the proliferation of intellectual property (IP) protected agro-technologies.

At the root of this assessment is the issue of monopolies formed by powerful seed and agrochemical companies; this paper investigates how IPRs facilitate monopolies within agribusiness sectors, and how corporate control over agricultural supply chains adversely affects African food systems – primarily in terms of market and ecological shocks.

Central to this study are the perspectives and experiences of African farmers, coalitions, food sovereignty activists, and human rights advocates, who are already working to protect their food systems from foreign intervention and draconian intellectual property regulations. Using a human rights lens, this paper ultimately sheds light on the ways the existing global economy sanctions a powerful few to co-opt and control indigenous food systems around the world, to the detriment of the food security in the Global South and Africa in particular.