Review of National and International Standards for the Protection of Traditional Knowledge in Medicinal Plants

Traditional Knowledge or indigenous knowledge plays a significant role in the lives of indigenous people throughout the world. Such indigenous knowledge subsists in many areas, such as, food preparation, dressing, traditional dance, medicinal plants and treatment of diseases and so on. Such knowledge contributes immensely in the day to day life of the indigenous people and in many parts of the world this is the only sources for most of the indigenous family’s livelihood. With the development of science and technology and rapid growth of trade and commerce, such indigenous knowledge has become a subject matter of exploitation in the hands of industrialists and traders and hence, the requirement of legal protection of such knowledge arises. Particularly traditional knowledge in medicinal plants are being exploited to a huge extent without recognizing the contributions of the originators. This paper is an attempt to review the existing national and International standards to highlight whether the existing standards are sufficient to afford protection or something more is required to be done.