This spring, the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization adopted its first new international treaty in over a decade—the first to connect intellectual property with the genetic resources and traditional knowledge of Indigenous peoples.

Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Margo A. Bagley was at the two-week long diplomatic convention held in May in Geneva, Switzerland, which resulted in its passage. She calls it “an unprecedented treaty,” which is also the realization of a decade of her work and research in an often-overlooked area of intellectual property. Bagley has been involved in the treaty’s development since 2014. She states: “my commitment to these issues derives from a desire for justice and fairness for those whose contributions have for so long gone unrecognized and yet who need and deserve the opportunity to share in the benefits their active stewardship and ingenuity has made possible.”

She has served as expert advisor for both Mozambique and the African Union, and was Friend of the Chair for WIPO’s Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore through 2023.

The WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge “mandates that offices in contracting parties require patent applicants to disclose the origin of genetic resources used in creating the claimed invention,” Bagley said. If the claimed invention is based on traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources, the indigenous peoples or community that provided it must also be disclosed.

WIPO defines genetic resources as “contained in, for example, medicinal plants, agricultural crops, and animal breeds. While genetic resources themselves cannot be directly protected as intellectual property, inventions developed using them can, most often through a patent.” They are often associated with traditional knowledge acquired by indigenous peoples over generations. Negotiations for the treaty began a quarter-century ago, in 1999, WIPO Director Daren Tang said in a statement.

“Every new treaty is historic, but this agreement is truly groundbreaking,” Tang said. “Yes, it is about patent disclosure practices but also about so much more. It’s about peoples and communities who felt excluded from the global IP ecosystem but are now able to begin to see themselves included. It’s about understanding that ancient wisdom can be a source of modern innovation. It’s about IP being a bridge in a divided world. And it’s about showing that multilateralism is still the most powerful platform for us to change the world together.”

The treaty was adopted with a consensus of over 150 member states, but there are still steps to go before the treaty is in force, Bagley said.

“The countries that signed the new treaty, and any others interested, will need to ratify it,” she said. “Most will also need to draft and enact implementing legislation or amendments in their national laws.” Once at least 15 countries have ratified it, the treaty will come into effect, but only within the ratifying countries, she said.

Bagley is an international authority on IP, as evidenced by her work on benefit-sharing of digital sequence information, a related but separate issue that seeks IP justice for indigenous peoples. In December 2022, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity recommended creating a multilateral benefit-sharing fund for digital sequence information, which mirrored a solution Bagley proposed in her 2022 Harvard International Law Journal article, “‘Just’ Sharing: The Virtues of Digital Sequence Information Benefit-Sharing for the Common Good.”

In 2023, Bagley was elected to membership in the American Law Institute. She is a director of the Harvard University Global Access in Action Program, and in fall 2022, was the Hieken Visiting Professor in Patent Law at Harvard Law School. She is a member of the U.S. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) ELSI (Ethical, Legal, Societal Issues) Team for the BRACE (Bio-Inspired Restoration of Aged Concrete Edifices) project and has previously served on the National Academies Committee on Advancing Commercialization from the Federal Laboratories. She also co-developed Emory Law’s innovative and award-winning TI:GER® program (Technological Innovation Generating Economic Results).