From International Ethics to European Union Policy: A Case Study on Biopiracy in the EU's Biotechnology Directive

This article explores how the question of biopiracy, and the rights of indigenous people in the context of patents over natural resources related to traditional knowledge became articulated within the European Union's law and policy process. It presents how this issue was first introduced into the EU during the negotiation on the Directive 98/44/EC, and which mechanisms transformed this ethical issue into a policy concern. Analyzing the history of this issue within that of Directive 98/44/EC offers significant opportunities for testing the appropriateness of multilevel governance and policy-network theories to empirical sociolegal research in the EU context.