Skip to main content

The Story of the Patenting of Life

The Mataatua Declaration on Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples is released.

Date: 1993

The Story of The Patenting of Life
INDG
GEN
RES

It is one of many declarations made by Indigenous people around the globe demanding that the Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP) pause: "until its moral, ethical, socio-economic, physical and political implications have been thoroughly discussed, understood and approved by Indigenous peoples" (Working Group on Indigenous Populations, 1993).


The project will deny this demand, like many others.