chidi oguamanam

Biography

Dr. Chidi Oguamanam is a Full Professor at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law (Common Law Section). He is appointed to UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology. At the University of Ottawa, Dr. Oguamanam holds the Research Chair in Bio-Innovation, Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Global Knowledge Governance. He is also affiliated with three centres: the Centre for Law, Technology and Society; the Centre for Environment and Global Sustainability; and the Centre for Health Law, Policy, and Ethics. Dr. Oguamanam is the Director of Access and Benefit Sharing Canada (ABS Canada) and the Co-founder and Co-director of the Open African Innovation Network (OpenAIR). He holds senior research fellowships with many institutions, including the University of Cape Town Intellectual Property Unit and the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law. Dr. Oguamanam is a Distinguished Visiting Research Professor at the University of Johannesburg College of Business and Economic Studies and South African Research Chair in Transformative Innovation, Fourth Industrial Revolution and Sustainable Development. He is a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences and inducted into the Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. Dr. Oguamanam is called to the Bar in Nigeria and Canada and is a member of the Nigerian Bar Association and Nova Scotia’s Barristers’ Society.

Dr. Oguamanam practiced intellectual property and corporate law prior to his graduate studies at the University of British Columbia, where he obtained his LL.M. and Ph.D. degrees in law. He began his academic career as a Fellow of the Canada Institutes of Health Research Program in Health Law and Ethics of Health Research at Dalhousie University. He later joined the Schulich School of Law where he taught several courses including Contract and Judicial Decision-Making, Commercial Law (Sale of Goods), Law and Technology, Advanced Intellectual Property, Intellectual Property and Commercialization Placement. In 2008, he became an Adjunct Professor at the Case Western Reserve Law School in Cleveland, Ohio, where he taught Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Knowledge and International Law. At Dalhousie University, Dr. Oguamanam was the Acting and subsequently the substantive Director of the Law and Technology Institute (2007-2011). He joined the University of Ottawa in 2011 and continues to teach courses at the Juris Doctor and graduate levels. He actively engages in graduate supervision in his diverse areas of interdisciplinary expertise in commercial law, intellectual property law, technology law, food and agriculture law, global governance of genetic resources, access and benefit sharing, biotechnology and biodiversity conservation, innovation, Indigenous knowledge systems, and global knowledge governance. 

Dr. Oguamanam has diverse interdisciplinary research interests in global knowledge governance in general, especially as manifested in the dynamics of intellectual property and technology law with emphasis on biodiversity, biotechnology, and agricultural biotechnology. He identifies the policy and practical contexts for the exploration of the intersections of knowledge systems, particularly western science and the traditional knowledge of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities within the broader development discourse and paradigm.  He is interested in the global institutional and regime dynamics for negotiating access and distributional challenges regarding the optimization of benefits of innovation by stakeholders.  He has written and published several articles on international intellectual property law-making, biotechnology in the context of health and agriculture, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous knowledge, farmers’ rights, access and benefit sharing over genetic resources, environmental law and biodiversity conservation, the policy and legal intersections of traditional and hi-tech agricultural practices, the documentation and digitization of local knowledge systems, globalization, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), medical ethics, nutrition, public health law and policy, colonialism and the legal profession, and the Nigerian movie industry (Nollywood). In addition to public speaking engagements nationally and internationally, Dr. Oguamanam provides technical and expert consulting and support services in his areas of work for States and sub-State actors, intergovernmental bodies, and Indigenous and local communities in developed and newly industrializing countries and elsewhere.

In 2026, Dr. Oguamanam was appointed to UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology, where he helps shape international discussions on the ethical challenges posed by emerging science and transformative technologies. In addition, Dr. Oguamanam contributes to the work of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) expert Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Traditional Cultural Expressions (IGC). The IGC is tasked with treaty-making on these subjects. Dr. Oguamanam was one of the global experts involved in the negotiations of the WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources, and Associated Traditional Knowledge, concluded on May 24, 2024. 

 

Media Coverage

Recent Publications

  1. Chidi Oguamanam, “Advancing Farmer-Centred Innovations Amidst Marginalization in Nigeria’s Seed Laws and Plant Variety Protection Regime” (2026) 16:1 Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property 6–27. https://doi.org/10.4337/qmjip.2026.01.01

  2. Chidi Oguamanam, “WIPO Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge Treaty: Unraveling the United States’ Isolationist Intellectual Property Diplomacy” (2026) 143 Intellectual Property Forum. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6365718

  3. Chidi Oguamanam, “Re-Inventing Global Public Health in the Shadow of COVID-19: Decentring Intellectual Property in International Health Regulations and the Pandemic Agreement for SDGs” (2026) 3:1 Journal of Global Health Law 30–52. https://doi.org/10.4337/jghl.2026.01.02  

  4. Chidi Oguamanam, "Information Systems and Digitization of Traditional Knowledge: Trends in Cultural Heritage and Memory Institutions and the WIPO Genetic Resources Treaty" (2026) 29:1 The Journal of World Intellectual Property 130–161. https://doi.org/10.1111/jwip.70005

  5. Chidi Oguamanam, “The WIPO Treaty on Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge: A Negotiation, Contextual and Conceptual Appraisal” (2025) 43 Boston University International Law Journal 321–374.

  6. Chidi Oguamanam, “Regime Complex in Life Sciences Innovation, Disclosure of Source, Traditional Knowledge and Shifts in Intellectual Property and Knowledge Governance” (2025) 56 International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law 877–881. 

  7. Chidi Oguamanam & Angela Yeboah-Appiah, “Kente Weaving Among Akan and Ewe Peoples of Ghana: A Gender-Based Insight into Embedded Intangible Cultural Heritage and Implications for the Implementation of the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention” (2024) 31:2 International Journal of Cultural Property 249–277. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0940739124000213