Schulich School of Law
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA | CANADA B3H 4R2 | +1 (902) 494-3495

Chidi Oguamanam

LL.B. (Hons.) (Ife), (B.L.), LL.M (Lagos), LL.M., Ph.D. (British Columbia)

Member, Nova Scotia Barristers' Society
Associate Professor
Director, Law and Technology Institute

Telephone: (902) 494-7125
E-mail: Chidi@dal.ca

Biography: Dr. Oguamanam practised intellectual property and corporate law before embarking on graduate studies at the University of British Columbia where he obtained his LL.M. and Ph.D. degrees in law.  He served in the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)'s Technical Expert Working Group on Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURTs). He is a graduate fellow of the Canada Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Training Program in Ethics of Health Research and Policy in mentoring capacity for program trainees. He is called to the Bar in Nigeria and Canada and is a member of Nigerian Bar Association and Nova Scotia’s Barristers’ Society.

As a professor in the Dalhousie's Schulich School of Law, Dr. Oguamanam teaches courses in Contracts and Judicial Rule-Making, Sale of Goods, Law and Technology, Advanced Intellectual Property, which are aspects of his diverse research interests. In January 2007 he became the Acting Director of the Law and Technology Institute to which he is primarily affiliated in the Law School and was appointed the substantive Director of the Institute in July 2007. Dr Oguamanam is also a Faculty Associate of the Marine and Environmental Law Institute and the Health Law Institute in the Law School.  He regularly provides graduate research supervisory support to a cross-section of students from these Institutes, especially those working around his diverse and intersecting research interests.

In addition to frequent speaking engagements nationally and internationally on his areas of research, Dr. Oguamanam 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, environmental law and biodiversity conservation, the policy and legal intersections of traditional and hi-tech agricultural practices, documentation and digitization of local knowledge systems, globalization, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), medical ethics, public health law and policy, colonialism and the legal profession. His most recent book titled "International Law and Indigenous Knowledge: Intellectual Property, Plant Biodiversity, and Traditional Medicine" was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2006. He is the 2009 recipient of the Borden Ladner Gervais Research Fellowship to support his new research initiative in intellectual property law.  He presently holds an adjunct professorship status at the Case Western Reserve Law School, Cleveland, Ohio where he teaches a course on Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Knowledge and International Law in the summer.

Recent Publications

 

Book(s)


C. Oguamanam,  Intellectual Property in Global Governance: The Crisis of Equity in the New Knowledge Economy (forthcoming, Routledge, 2010).


C. Oguamanam, Indigenous Knowledge in International Law: Intellectual Property, Plant Biodiversity and Traditional Medicine (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006).

 

Book Chapter(s)

 

C. Oguamanam, “Documentation and Digitization of Traditional Knowledge and Intangible Cultural Heritage: Challenges and Prospects” in Toshiyuki Kono (ed.), Intangible Cultural Heritage and Intellectual Property: Communities, Cultural Diversity and Sustainable Development (Antwerp: Intersentia, 2009) 357-383

 

Journal Articles

 

C. Oguamanam, “Beyond Theories: The Intellectual Property Dynamic in the Global Knowledge Economy” (forthcoming in 2009 Wake Forest Intellectual Property Journal)

 

C. Oguamanam, “Personalized Medicine and Complementary Alternative Medicine: In Search of Common Grounds” (forthcoming in 2009 Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine)

 

C. Oguamanam, “Patents and Traditional Medicine: Digital Capture, Creative Legal Interventions and the Dialectics of Knowledge” (2008) 15 Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 489-528.

 

C. Oguamanam, “Local Knowledge as Trapped Knowledge: Intellectual Property, Culture, Power and Politics” (2008) 11 Journal of World Intellectual Property 29-57.

 

C. Oguamanam, “Intellectual Property Rights in Plant Genetic Resources: Farmers’ Rights and Food Security in Indigenous and Local Communities” (2006) 11 Drake Agricultural Law Journal 273-305.

 

C. Oguamanam, “Regime Tension in the Intellectual Property Arena: Farmers’ Rights and Post-TRIPS Counter Regime Trends” (2006) 29 Dalhousie Law Journal 413-453.

 

C. Oguamanam, “Tension on the Farm Fields: The Death of Traditional Agriculture?” (2007) 27 Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 260-273.

 

C. Oguamanam, “Agro-Biodiversity and Food Security: Biotechnology and Traditional Agricultural Practices at the Periphery of International Intellectual Property Regime Complex” (2007) Michigan Sate University Law Review (pg. n. unavailable). 

 

C. Oguamanam, “Biomedical Orthodoxy and Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Ethical Challenges of Integrating Medical Cultures” (2006) 12:6 Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine 557-581.

 

C. Oguamanam, “From Rivalry to Rapprochement: Biomedicine, Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM) at Ethical Crossroads” (2006) 18:3 Health Ethics Committee (HEC) Forum 245-263.

 

Selected publications

  • Jane E. Anderson, Law, Knowledge, Culture: The Production of Indigenous Knowledge in Intellectual Property Law (forthcoming in December 2009 SCRIPTed, a Journal of Law, Technology & Society (http://www.script-ed.org) - book review.
  • Michael D. Mehta, ed., Biotechnology Unglued: Science, Society and Social Cohesion (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2005) 4:2 Canadian Journal of Law and Technology—book review.
  • “Genetic Use Restriction (or Terminator) Technologies (GURTs) in Agricultural Biotechnology: The Limits of Technological Alternative to Intellectual Property‿ (2005) 4:1 Canadian Journal of Law and Technology 59-76.
  • “Protecting Indigenous Knowledge in International Law: Solidarity Beyond Nation-States” (2004) 8 Law Text Culture 191-230.
  • Ikechi Mgbeoji, Collective Insecurity: Liberian Crisis, Unilateralism & Global Order (Vancouver, UBC Press, 2003) (2004) 27:1 Dalhousie Law Journal 285-292—book review.
  • “Indigenous Peoples and International Law: The Making of a Regime” (2004) 30:1 Queens Law Journal 348-399.
  • “Localizing Intellectual Property in the Globalization Epoch: The Integration of Indigenous Knowledge” (2004) 11: 2 Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 135-169.
  • “The Protection of Traditional Knowledge: Towards a Cross Cultural Dialogue on Intellectual Property Rights” (2004) 15:1 Australian Intellectual Property Journal 34-59.
  • Between Reality and Rhetoric: The Epistemic Schism in the Recognition of Traditional Medicine in International Law (2003) 16:1 St. Thomas Law Review 59-108.
  • The Convention on Biological Diversity: The Challenge of Indigenous Knowledge (2003) 7 Southern Cross University Law Review 89-141.
  • “The CBD Initiative on Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURTs): A Significant Step on Stormy Waters” – No. 23 Bulletin of the Canadian Indigenous Biodiversity Network (CIBN) Summer 2003 pp, 2-3.

 

Courses: