Introduction

This chapter examines the intellectual property (IP) rights frameworks of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states for the protection of traditional knowledge and cultural heritage (TK and CH). It examines the politics of law of the GCC and its member states, and the challenges facing the authorities in achieving an equitable balance between these protection frameworks and increasing pressures to adhere to foreign exploitation regimes driven by self-interest. As a comparative study, it also discusses the above issues from an Indonesian perspective.

These foreign regimes are enshrined in a western-industrialised protectionist paradigm in which TK and CH are hardly acknowledged. The dominant characteristic of these regimes is that IP is essentially a right private in nature and ascribable, identifiable and commercially exploitable. Rights which do not fit within this framework enjoy little of the protection offered by the global benchmark on IP rights, namely the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) or other successive multilateral and bilateral trade agreements with IP provisions.

The status of the GCC member states, collectively and individually, is as countries of growing influence and presence in global and regional politics and trade. But this creates a dilemma. On the one hand, the states have an opportunity to develop effective IP protection regimes that can be aligned with domestic developmental objectives that address their rich and complex cultural heritages. On the other hand, it places them under pressure to join the other influential and key regional trading nations to adhere to a recent round of global and regional trade agreements that incorporate ever increasing levels of IP protection within the exploitative paradigm.

These recent and proposed trade agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement (TPPA) and Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) for example, may not directly involve any of the GCC member states, but will no doubt have a flow-on effect upon IP protection standards generally and TK and CH specifically. The European Union (EU)-GCC Free Trade Agreement, on the other hand, does impact directly, and will contain provisions and conditions which will firmly set the climate for the future level of regional TK and CH protection. This chapter examines the implications of these agreements, and similar international and regional agreements, for the GCC member states’ cultural heritage legacy.