The “right of relations” between human and seeds: An ecological, ontological and epistemological approach of the legal property regime of seeds

Abstract

In this article, the authors propose to analyse the international seed property regime from the point of view of the “right of relations”. The ‘rights of relations’ is a concept derived from the philosophy of law which advocates protecting the relations that human beings have with nature and its living elements in order to protect nature itself. Other legal constructs, such as the rights of nature (or environmental law in general) are generally limited to a dualist, western and non-shared definition of nature (as something external to humanity, which we can exploit, appropriate or protect). Rather than protecting nature itself, it is all forms of relationships (subjective, social, spiritual, etc.) between humans and non-humans that are included in the new legal concept of rights of relations. The right of relations can be embodied in different specific situations. In this article, we want to apply this right of relations to the international seed property regime. Taking an approach of philosophy of law, we will apply the right of relations to a case study (the multilateral system of access and benefit sharing of the international treaty on plant genetic resources for food and agriculture) using the legal technique in order to highlight its implication for the legal property over seeds. In a first part, the international seed property regime will be presented and criticised. Then, we will explain what the rights of relations between human and seeds are and explore the possible avenues to mitigate the identified limits of the international seed property regime with the concept of rights of relations. Indeed, in the face of different challenges of the international seed regime, the right of relations could be used in several ways. First, the right of relations may be an effective approach to protecting co-development links between humans and seeds (whether physical or immaterial, cultural, spiritual, medicinal, etc.), moving away from a purely market and appropriation approach to seeds. The right of relations may also be a tool to protect the traditional knowledge of local and indigenous people and communities living with seed. To conclude, we believe that the right of relations is a promising concept to address important criticisms of the legal property regime of seeds (the misunderstanding of the relationship with humans and seeds, or a neo-colonial approach in the face of a western science in comparison to traditional knowledge) and offers an interesting alternative legal prism, exploring paths parallel to commoning, relevant to this case but also to other areas of property and environmental law.