Fair trade and equitable
distribution
Dr Mike Adcock
Director,
Master of Laws Programme
Durham University
Principle 4: Just reward
Biofuels should be developed in
accordance with trade principles that are
fair and recognise the rights of people to
just reward (including labour rights and
intellectual property rights)
Brazilian bioethanol
Fair trade: challenges
• Ensuring fair reward in global agriculture
settings is challenging
• Current Fairtrade schemes are insufficient
• As yet, no internationally agreed biofuels
fair trade principles exist
• Countries have differing capacities to
enforce ethical principles for fair trade
Recommendations
• Biofuels targets should promote fair trade
principles
• Changes to targets must carefully consider
possible impacts on developing countries
• EU and national trade principles developed
as part of biofuels regulation should be
proportionate
Intellectual property
Two key IPRs (Intellectual Property Rights)
• Patents over novel inventions that make
technical or industrial contributions to
human knowledge
• Plant variety rights which may be used to
protect a new plant variety specifically bred
for its use in biofuels production
IP licences
Licensing agreements should:
• Encourage rapid dissemination of information
• Foster innovation
• Ensure opportunities for all parties to obtain
returns
• Provide certainty over:
– scope of the licence
– rights associated with the technology
– ownership of rights arising from any
research using the technology
Recommendations
• The UK Intellectual Property Office should
develop a licence scheme for biofuels
based on current international guidelines
• More research should be carried out on the
economic and social impacts of intellectual
property in this field
Principle 5:
Equitable distribution
Costs and benefits of biofuels should be
distributed in an equitable way
• Rule 1
Symmetry between
benefits and harms
• Rule 2
Benefit sharing to further Millennium
Development Goals
Policies for
equitable distribution
• Difference between ‘public good’ and
benefits which may only help certain
sections of society, for example:
– Sufficient supply of liquid transport fuel in
the developed world may endanger
livelihoods elsewhere
– Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions
may mean food insecurity in poorer
communities
• Policies should aim to broadly maximise
benefits, reduce costs and ensure no
additional inequities
Recommendations
• Biofuels policy and future sustainability
initiatives should not discourage local,
small-scale biofuels production, particularly
in developing countries that are fuel poor
• Policies should ensure that benefits of
biofuels production are shared equitably, for
example, through public–private
partnerships