Rejecting the Privatization of Life and Proposing Alternatives

The struggle for the recognition of the basic elements of life as not being part of the commercial domain, which is how they are understood and organized by the different technologies that are calling for an unprecedented development of the different branches of genetic engineering is the subject of this Proposal Paper. In Part I, the author outlines a reflection on the concept of the legal regime applied to different forms of the living and the problems raised by the extension of the copyright and patent laws (based on the model of the law on intellectual property) to different categories of living organisms (microorganisms, plants, animals, human beings). In Part II, the author presents problems for the future: the dangers of an unlimited expansion of the patent law as well as a generalized privatization of any genetic resource. Finally, in Part III, the author formulates, in three points, concrete proposals against the privatization model: refusal of the patent, affirmation of the need for democratic oversight and for a debate on the legal forms for the protection of innovations.