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UWI TODAY
– SUNDAY 7 APRIL 2019
ADVOCACY
RIGHT TO IDENTITY
Faculty of Law hosts workshop on First Peoples’
intellectual property and environmental protections
B Y L I S A L U A N A O W E N
Lisa Luana Owen is a freelance writer, event coordinator, PR strategist and traditional and new media marketing consultant.
Imagine that you live peacefully in a self-sufficient,
close-
knit community whose spiritual and cultural beliefs and
practices are at one with the environment. Then imagine
strangers arrive from a far off land to claim your land
as their own, slaughter your comrades, disrespect your
philosophies, ridicule your way of life, dispossess you of
your land, and purge you of your inherent human rights of
dignity and identity.
This is what the indigenous peoples of Trinidad and
Tobago faced when the colonials invaded in 1492 in what
their descendants refer to as a “terrorist attack” on the
nation’s first peoples.
Today indigenous peoples and their “hard-fought”
rights are still being threatened by the advent of extractive
industries as well as the longstanding inadequacy of efforts
placed on protecting and leveraging their intellectual
property (IP) and environmental rights. While their beliefs
and customs continue to be mocked and ridiculed by the
lesser enlightened in our society.
Speaking at a recent workshop hosted by UWI’s Faculty
of Law (FOL) entitled “
Protecting Intellectual Property and
the Environmental Rights of Indigenous Peoples of Trinidad
and Tobago
”, Santa Rosa First Peoples’ Community Chief
RicardoHernandez, said indigenous peoples still suffer from
high levels of invisibility, and the continuity of historical
injustices have greatly challenged their ability to preserve
their cultural identity as it relates to language, food, music,
spiritually and protection of the environment as a whole.
But help, in the form of education and advocacy, is on
the way.
FOLDean and President and Former Rapporteur on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples Inter-American Commission
on Human Rights (IACHR) OAS, Washington, Professor
Rose-Marie Belle Antoine said, “The story of our indigenous
peoples is in truth one of human rights. Sadly however, too
often it is about violations of those rights by imperialists of
apathetic uncaring states. It involves genocide and cultural
loss, but also defiance, resistance and survival”.
“The First Peoples of T&T are still at the stage of
reaffirming their cultural identity and patrimony, necessary
prerequisites to their full recognition and of deserving
entitled legal subjects of a nation that embraces history and
corrects wrong,” stated Professor Antoine.
“For indigenous communities, relations to the land
are not merely a matter of possession and production but
a material and spiritual element which… are premised
on community and harmony, and is not about individual
greed and possession,” she explained, adding that it was
widely believed at an international level that the traditions
of the indigenous people is more conducive to sustaining
the Earth through broader notions of collective rights and
responsibility to the land we share.
She said the main purpose of the workshop was to
harness the knowledge of the first peoples of Trinidad and
Tobago by providing them with concrete tools of law in
relation to Intellectual Property (IP) and Environmental
Rights to protect and preserve their contributions, interests
and resources. “We see law as an instrument of positive
social change centred in its rightful place, the community.
We do not see law and legal education as only for lawyers
and elitists, rather we want to use law to empower.”
Also speaking at the workshop was Minister of Labour
and Small Enterprise Development, Senator the Honourable
Jennifer Baptiste Primus, who urged the indigenous people
of Trinidad and Tobago not to lost heart.
“The reality is that the current IP systemwas developed
tomeet the needs of an industrial society and the protection
of IP rights of indigenous peoples are of a muchmore recent
vintage. We are a culturally rich country and I am sure that
you would agree with me that we could do more to secure
our culture and heritage,” commented the Minister.
Held on February 23 2019 at UWI’s Faculty of Social
Sciences (FSS) Conference Lounge, the packed workshop
included several members of the First Peoples’ community
of all ages. Participants also included those with an interest
in intellectual property, indigenous languages, traditional
medicine, environmental advocacy, government policy as
well as members of the legal fraternity.
First Peoples speakers and presenters included
Roger Belix, President of the Partners for First Peoples
Development; Cristo Adonis, who presented on traditional
medicines and products of the Santa Rosa First Peoples; and
Elsy Curihuinca, an attorney at the Rapporteurship on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples of the IACHR.
Presenters from The UWI included Dr Justin
Koo (lecturer from FOL), on intellectual property to
commercialise First Peoples’ products; Dr Sharon Le Gall
(senior lecturer, FOL) on protecting indigenous medicine;
John Knechtle (senior lecturer at FOL) on environmental
conservation; and Dr Roger Hosein (senior lecturer at FSS)
and Rebecca Gookool (researcher at FSS) on supporting
microenterprise development for First Peoples.
The workshop was part of a broader work revolving
around a two-year donor project funded by the European
Development Fund entitled “
Strengthening Trinidad and
Tobago’s Human Rights Capacity through Innovative
Legal Education Building
”. It involves an innovative
legal education concept integrating the Faculty’s new
International Human Rights Clinic and corresponding LLB
course withNGOs, special interest groups, the State, faculty,
staff, students and practicing attorneys within a dynamic
programme of advocacy, activism, litigation and research.
The project is being administered by the Ministry
of Education and includes persons deprived of liberty,
including refugees, persons on remand, indigenous peoples,
children’s rights, disability law and gender.
“We do not see law and legal education as only for lawyers
and elitists, rather we want to use law to empower.”
Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine, Dean of the Faculty of Law
From left, Chief Ricardo Hernandez, Labour Minister
Jennifer Baptiste Primus, Professor Belle Antoine and Cristo Adonis.
PHOTOS: KEYON MITCHELL, COURTESY OF THE FACULTY OF LAW
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS CLINIC.
Elsy Curihuinca
