Publication

The Law of the Seed – Another Development and Plant Genetic Resources

Issue no.1983:1-2(21) of Development Dialogue explores how citizens must exercise their right to inform and be informed about development to ensure participation in decision-making processes.

Publication details

Title:The Law of the Seed – Another Development and Plant Genetic Resources
Type:Development Dialogue
Issue:1983:1-2
Author:Pat Roy Mooney
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In the 1975 Dag Hammarskjold Report, What Now: Another Development, it was emphasized that an alternative conceptual framework was needed for the future development of the world and that Another Development should be need-oriented, endogenous, self-reliant, ecologically sound and based on structural transformations.

In pointing up the need for strengthening the Third World’s capacity for self-reliant development, it was, furthermore, stressed that this entailed ‘Exercising the right of national economic sovereignty over resources and production, ending the drain of resources from the Third World to the industrialized countries’ by, inter alia, reviewing ‘contracts, leases and concessions entered into with transnational corporations under conditions of inequality’ and ‘regulations of conditions governing trade in technology including the revision of the present patent system’. In order to achieve these objectives, citizens must exercise their ‘right to inform and be informed about the facts of development, its inherent conflicts and the changes it will bring about, locally and internationally’, thereby promoting a process of ‘conscientization’ and ensuring full participation in the decision- making process.

 

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