Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples to Health: Access and Benefit Sharing, Traditional Medicine and Global Health
Publication Forthcoming
A Human-Centered Approach to Health Innovations: Reconciling Intellectual Property with Human Rights (Cambridge University Press)
Lisa Biersay, Thomas Pogge and Peter K. Yu (eds)
(August 2026)
By Chidi Oguamanam
Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) all over the world contribute to global health through their traditional knowledge, which derives from their rich genetic resources and medicinal heritage. The knowledge of traditional medicinal uses of genetic resources intersects with orthodox medicine and the scientific innovation complex in ways that suggest asymmetrical power relations. This dynamic stokes tensions not only regarding IPLCs’ right to health but also their right to benefit from their contributions to global health. Recently, there have been attempts across international and national frameworks to ensure that IPLCs fairly benefit from innovations and knowledge exchange, including those relevant to health.
A leading example is the famous case involving the various uses of the rooibos plant, which is associated with the Khoi and San peoples of southern Africa. Despite the traction of the attempts and similar models of what is now known as Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS), limited scholarly attention has been devoted to ABS from the human rights perspective. To what degree does ABS promote Article 15(1)(c) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights—IPLCs’ “right … [t]o benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production” of which they are the authors? Can ABS help advance IPLCs’ human rights in cross-epistemic health innovations?
Photo courtesy of TeaCora Rooibos, Unsplash.