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In the past, the focus of biopiracy has been on corporations taking the knowledge of Indigenous groups for commercial purposes, but the new pio-neers of biopiracy are different and require different controls. Many of these corporations, which were once spread out and diversified, are merging to create super-conglomerates, which carry knowledge and thousands of patents with them, making it harder not only for Indigenous people to retain their knowledge and break into the market but to even launch a successful campaign against the corporations at all.7 4 In 2019, PepsiCo sued a potato farmer, Haribhai Devjibhai Patel, from the Western Indian province of Gu- jarat for planting a patented potato variety called FC5. 75 PepsiCo sued for 140,000 USD; Patel makes 3,500 USD a year.76 The suit was dropped after protests from Indian farmers, but there are still major international concerns about the patent power held by large corporations and their control over the future of farming freedom.7 7 The concern is not misplaced either. Four players control 50% of the seed business - Bayer, Corteva, ChemChina, and Limagrain.7 8 Many major seed producers place limits on how farmers can use varieties they purchase. 79 Buyers must sign agreements that prohibit them from saving or using the seeds again the next season or producing derivatives. 80 This forces them to return to the major corporations every year to purchase seeds and creates an unwilling reliance on the seed giants for continued existence. 81 For example, in India over 80% of all cotton grown is Monsanto GMO Bt cotton, which was introduced in 2002.82 In perhaps an ironic turn of events, many grassroots movements are further alleging that not only are super-corporations the problem, but billionaire moguls like Bill Gates, who is claimed to be leading the way in seed piracy, agro-neocolonialism, and the spread of unsustainable farming technology. 83 The Green Revolution, which began in the early 1960s, pushed for the production of more food via advanced farming methods, genetically modified crops, and pesticide use, but was also the backdrop for Indigenous seeds (specifically in Mexico and India) to be taken and placed into international seed vaults.8 4 After the seeds were removed, they were replaced with chemical monocultures of wheat, rice, and other grains - the Indigenous populations had no say or choice in the matter. 85 The impact ofthis was significant, causing a loss "of distinct Indigenous crops from cultivation and also . . . extinction." 86 This is especially relevant since in the 20th Century, 75% of agrobiodiversity has been lost and seed diversity is paramount to restoration 87

Despite the fact that the Western creators of the TRIPS believed they were aiding developing countries, the TRIPS agreement comes under the heaviest scrutiny from outsiders as the most concerning patent "reform." The three negotiating forces behind the agreement were Keidanren, the Intellectual Property Committee (IPC), and the Union of Industrial and Employees Confederation (UNICE).1 3 5 Each one of these organizations had strong commercial interests - "IPC is a coalition of 12 major U.S. corporations: Bristol Myers, DuPont, General Electric, General Motors, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Monsanto, Pfizer, Rockwell, and Warner. 136 Keidanren is a federation of economic organizations in Japan, and UNICE is recognized as the official spokesperson for European business and industry."137 Concerns arose that the commercial interests would prioritize the Global North over the Global South, who was absent from much of the TRIPS negotiation process. 138 The TRIPS agreement focused on the privatization of the IP system, affirming WTO member patent systems based on private property rights, which successfully negated communal knowledge. 139 Nor does the agreement take into account the varying definitions of comercialization of traditional knowledge. 140 Before TRIPS was enacted, there were no uniform international IP requirements, and states were free to manage their IP, which meant that traditional knowledge could hypothetically be protected.141 But underdeveloped nations were pressured into signing the agreement to keep pace with developed nation's IP systems at the expense of Indigenous populations and community values. 142 India stated that its adoption of TRIPS in 1994 was due to its need "to utilize demanded-for intellectual property rights as a sword and shield against deculturizing [sic] forces of globalization and foreign investment." 143 Thus, it is no surprise that in many scholars' eyes the TRIPS agreement was a failure and has been likened to modern day imperialism.144 Further, TRIPS has not changed or expanded in any meaningful way since its inception in the mid-nineties, and still stands as a hallmark case of bullying by the West. 145 The agreement preys on the interests of Indigenous populations, but is also in direct conflict with the Convention on Biological Diversity, though they both exist in the same universe as one another and in apparent congruence.

In philosophical and theoretical terms the capacity for perseverance is crucial to the view, said to have emerged in the seventeenth century with Spinoza, that basically all living things seek to persevere and that therefore anything of which perseverance can be observed may be said to be living and have life. As he put it in his Ethics ‘everything in so far as it is in itself endeavors to persist in its own being’ and ‘the endeavor wherewith a thing endeavors to persist in its being is nothing else than the actual essence of that thing’ (Spinoza, 1972: 91). Whether this underlining of the importance of perseverance by Spinoza actually amounts to the assertion of a ‘life drive’ is seriously disputed (Williams, 2016). Nevertheless, influential interpreters of Spinoza today argue the case that not only do all things which live persevere but that all things which persevere ought to be accorded the same right to life because they are all of equal value (Povinelli, 2012: 465). If perseverance can be said to be a particular virtue of indigenous peoples then perhaps that is because they have greater access to the most fundamental law of living systems than other peoples.

The work of the anthropologist Elizabeth Povinelli has been central to this new discourse on indigenous perseverance, as well as the wider claim that perseverance is fundamental to political subjectivity per se. Povinelli describes herself as concerned with the questions of ‘[How] new forms of social life maintain the force of existing in specific social spacings of life? How do they endure the effort it takes to strive to persevere?’ (Povinelli, 2012: 462). At the same time, Povinelli has been pushing the boundaries of the limits of the kinds of space with which we are taught to associate perseverance as a capacity of things, not just by multiplying the forms of life in which we identify the capacity to strive and persevere, but by shifting from life to non-life, bodies to assemblages, and the organic to the non-organic (Povinelli, 2015: 440–41).

A number of parallels can be drawn between colonial cities and the current generation of entrepreneurial new cities. Similarities can be seen not just in the overarching utopian belief that new masterplanned cities will inevitably be successful and live up to promises, but that they are a suitable scale at which to solve urban problems, are a productive use of resources and represent an appropriate approach for advancing the economy. The prioritization of grandiose and top-down efforts over more incremental urban interventions recalls the muscular monumentalism of the colonial era, which sought to visually communicate and normalize uneven power relations (Vale, 2008). New cities continue to emphasize the importance the British Empire placed on the construction of physically distinct new cities built on a tabula rasa, while perpetuating power hierarchies and institutional dynamics driving urban mega developments. With few exceptions, current new cities are a phenomenon found primarily in former colonies in Asia and Africa (e.g. Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, India, Morocco, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Angola and others). Further empirical research into the internalization of colonial ideology would reveal the various ways in which new urban mega developments and utopian cities are shaped by colonial legacies. While the designers of post-independence cities strived, with varying levels of success, to overcome social barriers and to be inclusive, both colonial and current new cities perpetuate geographies of exclusion through expropriating land and cutting the poor off from their livelihoods (Das, 2012). If Dholera is constructed as planned, it will be fascinating to investigate the existing social divisions exacerbated by the master plan, how they are being challenged and the differences between Dholera and life at its periphery. My work in the context of Malaysia has revealed that colonial notions of race and districts of racial ‘purity’ have been resurrected in the new master-planned capital of Putrajaya (Moser, 2010, 2012a, 2012b) and comparative work from elsewhere in the former colonial world may uncover similar legacies. While scholars have demonstrated how transcolonial genealogies of power and political economy reveal the constitutive role of colonialism (Venn, 2009), more research is required to help us understand the entrenched historical hierarchies and current social divisions manifested in new cities. The language of colonial powers and current technocrats driving new cities treat their endeavours as inevitable and urgent, while employing utopian language to rationalize and sell the project. Both colonial powers and current elites pushing for the construction of Dholera exploit concerns about rampant and out-of-control urban growth, overcrowding, pollution and poverty in order to rapidly seize land, change laws and accrue power. Current new city projects also echo the language of the colonial ‘civilizing’ mission as the poor are treated as an obstacle holding the nation back from modernizing and achieving success on the global stage. Dholera and Prime Minister Modi’s planned 100 new smart cities can be understood as yet another effort at reinvention, which once again implies that a ‘backwards’ and stagnant India requires the guidance of modern and technologically savvy Western-sanctioned global ‘experts’ who promise that utopian corporate cities will spark economic growth, modernize the locals and lift the rural poor out of poverty. Rather than architects, planners and the other ‘experts’ who circulated throughout the British Empire rebuilding the colonies based on the latest Western planning philosophies, the ‘expert’ mantle has now passed to corporate executives, ‘visionaries’ and ‘thought leaders’ from Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, McKinsey and other technology and consultancy companies. Such experts consistently recommend elaborate projects in former colonies from which they directly benefit financially and which foster a relationship of dependence. For example, Cisco, a multinational corporation selling networking equipment, has been at the forefront of new smart city design, its pie`ce de re´sistance being Songdo, South Korea. Cisco directly benefits from selling the idea of smart cities and taking on more new cities as clients, an endeavour at which they have been highly successful; Cisco is helping to create clones of Songdo in China and acts as consultants on a variety of new cities, including Saudi Arabia’s four new ‘economic’ cities, the Gujarat International Finance TecCity and Yachay Knowledge City in Ecuador. The expensive visions offered by international experts of a modern, clean and prosperous urban future seem irresistible to many aspirational ruling elites who are ‘seduced’ by slick presentations, computer-generated images of gleaming new cities and the promise of economic miracles (Bunnell and Das, 2010). The corporate role in current new cities is a departure from post-independence new cities, although further research may reveal dynamics similar to those found in new cities of the colonial era. Current new cities embody a planning strategy that is out of step with many progressive planning approaches, which advocate community consultation and incremental interventions rather than top-down master planning and view the urban poor as resourceful, innovative and creative. Furthermore, the dynamism and inclusivity of the ‘right to the city’ movement and self-build approaches are completely absent from discussions about new master-planned cities. ‘world-class’ services, new cities are inextricably linked to the discipline of planning’s century-long engagement with the master planning urban mega projects in the Global South. Further empirical work that places new master-planned cities in a broader historical trajectory will demonstrate entrenched patterns of elite power and internalized colonial assumptions about urbanism and modernity. Urban geographers can fruitfully draw on the work of planning historians to trace the deep roots of power relations and institutions that are (re)gaining strength and political clout as new cities in India and other former colonies pivot away from postindependence goals of inclusivity to embrace cities that are ‘fast,’ smart and neo-liberal.

In this chapter we are concerned specifically with the discursive framing of indigenous peoples as dispossessed subjects. By this we mean not simply the ways in which indigenous peoples are recognised, increasingly, as having been dispossessed of their lands by settler colonial states and other regimes of power historically, but the ways in which their condition of dispossession is today valorised as a positive attribute of their ways of life. In contrast with the subject of Western modernity, it is claimed the indigenous have no interest in making the world they live in into their property. An indigenous approach to life and world starts from the principle, it is said, that we belong to the world, the world does not belong to us (Adese, 2014: 61). This is not just a normative claim. The task of becoming indigenous develops, it is supposed, from recognition of the truth that it is simply not possible to possess land in the ways that have been assumed in the West. The task is one of learning how to live with the land, in the understanding that we are possessed by it, rather than it belonging to us for our use and benefit. The conceit of the West, historically, and still today, it is maintained, is that of its belief in the ability to possess the land, subordinate it, and exploit it, as an object for human satisfaction.

Taking the logic of dispossession further, some argue that indigenous peoples have no concept of possession as such. In her recent book, A Field Guide to Getting Lost , the popular American writer Rebecca Solnit describes how in the language of the Wintu people of California there exists no account of the self as distinct from its other (2017: 17). Without an understanding of what is other the self has no understanding of possession, for only things that are other from the self can indeed be possessed. The self is the presupposition we make when we lay claim to possession. Linguistically this is evident in the many ways we make claim, in the English language at least, to possessing this or that. I say ‘my arm, my leg, my body, my thoughts, my imagination, my friend, my house, my world, my land’, and so on. In the language of the Wintu no such notion of ‘my’ this or that exists. As the anthropologist Dorothy Lee explains, this owes to the fact that ‘the Wintu have a conception of the self which is markedly different to our own’ (Lee, 1950: 538). For them the self is ontologically implicated in a world of things, which by dint of that prior implication it cannot possess but which may be said to possess it. This is an image of the self, availed to us by indigenous language and ways of being, as radically dispossessed, and itself an object of possession. For Solnit, this other way of being in the world and of experiencing the self is a source of wonder, attraction and potential emancipation, for the Western subject, which still errantly believes in its own autonomy from the world, and who is not the autonomous entity it sees itself as (Solnit, 2017: 17–25).

Traditional knowledge is disappearing at a rapid rate.27 Research conducted from 2000-2009 found that traditional knowledge from an Amazonian community was being lost at a rate that ranged from 9% to 26% with most of the loss happening in communities living closer to cities.28 As urbanization of rural communities increases, the rate at which traditional knowledge disappears will also increase.29 Two major reasons traditional knowledge is being lost at this rate: the use of oral transmission, instead of written documentation, among indigenous peoples and local communities, and the protectionist trend which restricts access to traditional knowledge.30 Almost 200 countries have agreed to increase access to traditional knowledge and genetic resources by signing the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).31 However, in response to the absence of legal protection for traditional knowledge in other nations, megadiverse countries are participating in a protectionist trend.32 The rising protectionist trend in megadiverse countries limits access to the traditional knowledge that has proven to be valuable for biopharmaceutical research.33 An increase in restrictions will decrease opportunities to collaborate in bioprospecting and will slow down innovation because megadiverse countries make up almost 70% of the world’s diversity.34 If the protectionist trend continues, it will be difficult to maintain bioprospecting relationships with megadiverse countries.35 This trend would be less problematic if the restrictive measures of the megadiverse countries would lead to the creation of new products based on their own traditional knowledge.36 These countries, however, usually do not have the capacity to use their traditional knowledge to create and produce new products.37 By failing to protect traditional knowledge, the United States is making it more challenging for its researchers to access essential resources in biodiverse countries.38

ISSUE: Biodiversity prospecting is the exploration, extraction and screening of biological diversity and indigenous knowledge for commercially valuable genetic and biochemical resources. Bilateral bioprospecting agreements are sanctioned by the multilateral Convention on Biological Diversity. In the vast majority of cases, however, commercial bioprospecting agreements cannot be effectively monitored or enforced by source communities, countries, or by the Convention, and amount to little more than "legalized" bio-piracy. IMPACT: A growing number of pharmaceutical corporations, biotechnology companies (and their intermediaries) are stalking the forests, fields and waters of the developing world in search of biological riches and indigenous knowledge. Northern-based institutions seek access to tropical biodiversity for the primary purpose of developing patented and profitable products. No matter how convincing the rhetoric, conservation and equity are secondary issues. Under the vast majority of current bioprospecting agreements, when indigenous peoples share information or genetic materials they effectively lose control over such resources, regardless of whether or not they are compensated. FINANCIAL STAKES: RAFI estimates that medicinal plants and microbials from the South contribute at least $30 billion a year to the North's pharmaceutical industry.(1) It is conservatively estimated that the market for natural product research specimens (samples or extracts of biological materials) within the U.S. pharmaceutical industry alone is (US) $30-60 million per annum. Not surprisingly, biological bounty hunters are in feverish pursuit of the South's "green gold."

Patents not only act as a roadblock for the new entrants but also hinder the process of free use and exchange of biological materials between the communities. Although, it has been said that patent encourages innovation but in reality, it obstructs new inven- tions as it grants an exclusive right to the patentee to block others from entering into a related field. It also denies the natural rights of the indigenous people to use their naturally occurring resources freely. Patents are considered to be a regulatory tool as the patent holder tries to gain a competitive advantage over the others and regulate the entire market (Bently L., Sherman B., 2014, pp. 380- 381). Farmers are the ones who have been making inventions and discoveries since ages without any proprietary rights or patent protection (Vandana S., 1997, p. 54). So, if the interest of the patent holder is meant to be protected then the farmer’s interest must also be taken into consideration. It has been argued that extending the intellectual property rights on life forms or biotechnological resources have a detrimental impact on the biodiversity. Firstly, patenting of biological resources has not only resulted in the exploitation of the envi- ronment but has also caused inimical effects on our ecosystem. For instance, the misuse of the rosy periwinkle, having alkaloids which are used in curing leukemia and Hodgkin diseases have resulted in the disappearance of the plant species from the Ivory Coast, Togo, Ghana, and Benin. Secondly, patenting encourages the prolifera- tion of monocultural agriculture. The practice of monocultural agriculture replaces the biologically diversified ecosystem and damages all the biodiversity in a particular area. Thirdly, it is generally seen that the practice of granting patents to the corpora- tions of the developed countries over the biological products of the developing coun- tries has resulted in bio- colonialism. It has caused serious environmental damage by putting a risk on the biodiversity of the developing countries without providing any kind of benefit to them (Connery M., 2003, pp. 112-116). So, in order to protect the environment, it is justified to limit patent rights.

Patents are legal instruments designed to safeguard IP and encourage innovation, as they grant patent owners exclusive rights to their inventions for a determined period, fostering an environment in which research and development can flourish. Biological and genetic resources are often researched and collected, and the knowledge derived is applicable to useful products in several industry fields, such as agriculture, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. However, when the naturally occurring biochemical, genetic material or traditional knowledge is unethically appropriated or commercially exploited without providing fair compensation to the community from which it originates, this is known as biopiracy. The implications of biopiracy and patents extend far beyond legal and economic boundaries. They further intersect scientific and ethical concerns, and this article aims to unveil the opportunities for innovation and challenges for sustainability and social justice associated with it. Biological resources, particularly those from diverse ecosystems (such as the Amazon), hold immense economic potential. These resources can be anything from medicinal plants with unique healing properties to microorganisms with potential industrial applications and one of the greatest challenges is striking a balance between economic interests and environmental sustainability. Unfortunately, the attraction to economic gains often drives the exploration and indiscriminate exploitation of these resources, leading to overharvesting, habitat destruction, and endangerment of species, causing irreparable damage to ecosystems. Since patenting can grant exclusive rights to an entity for a period of time, it can limit access to certain biological resources or technologies, creating monopolies on naturally occurring material or traditional knowledge which has been unproperly appropriated. In most cases, the pursuit of short-term economic benefits does not align with long-term ecological sustainability. In this context, responsible resource management and a shared commitment to conservation are key concepts that must be considered. Unauthorized exploitation of genetic resources can lead to loss of biodiversity and, therefore, limit the availability of critical research tools and materials for legitimate scientific research, therefore hindering scientific progress and innovation. The same applies to excessive patenting, which can create barriers by limiting the availability of essential tools and resources. Another point to be considered is the misuse of genetic resources, which can potentially lead to irresponsible or unsafe applications in biotechnology and genetic engineering as well as cause biosecurity risks. As regards Traditional Knowledge, biopiracy can result in misappropriation, leading to the loss of culturally important information and valuable insights for scientific research, since indigenous and local knowledge systems often encompass unique cultural and ecological perspectives. The patenting of nature-based products, especially those obtained through biopiracy, raises ethical questions related to the potential for exploitation in the name of profit-driven research without the consent of those who have passed down traditional knowledge for generations. The unethical acquisition of biological resources and/or traditional knowledge can damage trust and cooperation between researchers and communities, hindering collaborative efforts that could otherwise benefit both scientific discovery and conservation efforts.

CHAPTER 4: THE HUMAN RIGHTS DIMENSION OF BIOPIRACY 1. Intellectual Property and Traditional Knowledge

The features of traditional knowledge have already been outlined, alongside with the need for its protection. At this point, after having analysed the most important aspects of intellectual property, an important matter appears, namely the issue of the protection of traditional knowledge under patents. Interestingly, Dutfield notes that while folklore tends to be listed within the boundaries of copyright law, traditional knowledge is more often discussed within patent law. Unfortunately, generally patent law is believed to be lacking when it comes to the protection of TK, and that it cannot provide promising solutions in this regard549. There are four main reasons to why patent law is considered not effective enough to provide the necessary protection to TK, according to Dutfield: first of all, traditional knowledge is a collective value, while patents are individual achievements; secondly, patents are granted on the basis of newness and discovery, while TK is based on tradition and ancient knowledge; patents descriptions and specifications have to be written in a technical way, which would be quite difficult to replicate in the case of TK; and lastly, applying and enforcing patents is extremely expensive550. With regard to the first issue, the alleged incompatibility between patent protection and TK stems from the fact that the latter is usually conceived as owned by the community as a whole, and that TK is generated by that very same community who owns it, and further develops it; while in order to grant patent protection, an individual, be it an author or inventor or owner, must be identifiable. Nonetheless, it is quite paradoxical that a new and non-obvious modification of TK achieved by an individual, as it falls within the category of newness and discovery, can be subjected to patent protection551. The third issue regards on the other hand, the fact that one of the criteria of patentability states that the invention must not be obvious to one skilled in the art, thus ruling out most of the TK from patentability. However, according to Dutfield, this argumentation could be widened also to Western scientific knowledge, which is equally non-patentable, thus making this particular issue not a valid objection to patent protection on TK552. Moreover, and this relates the third and fourth objections, if an indigenous community decided to apply for a patent to file the application and write the required technical description, this would result in a very likely expensive choice. Hiring an attorney, possible confrontations and litigations with corporate firms would require financial resources that many indigenous communities do not have, due to the their lack of economic self-sufficiency. This could be regarded, as the main reason why many indigenous communities are reluctant to file patent applications, and why patent protection is not considered effective enough to safeguard and preserve TK 553 . The solutions proposed by Dutfield, in order to overcome the incompatibility between patents and traditional knowledge, are manifold, which the author refers to as genuine possibilities. A possible alternative to avoid the extremely expensive costs of filing a patent application could be that of sharing the ownership of the patents with those enterprises or companies interested in the knowledge, which would apply on behalf of the indigenous communities, as they do have the means and financial resources to do so554. An alternative possibility would be the application for a patent by companies and the communities named together as the inventors, thus generating rights, mostly of compensation, also for traditional communities. Nonetheless, these options could only be feasible, if a mutual feeling of trust existed, which is sometimes lacking from both sides555. The notion that TK lacks the newness and innovation criteria to be eligible under patent protection has been recognised by many authors. For instance, TK should be in the form of an invention, thus sufficiently novel, and should not be exposed to the wider public prior to the moment of registration. Therefore, it is quite clear that TK is hardly eligible for patent protection according to the current IP system and rules556. A further issue related to the incompatibility between patents and TK, is the fact that patent protection is usually granted for a short period of time, thus neglecting one of the most important features of TK, which is continuity. As a matter of fact, UNDRIP recognised to indigenous people the right to maintain and control their own knowledge, as well as the ability to further develop it. Thus, a short-term protection would not be effective enough. Unfortunately, by looking at TK through the current IP system and rights, since it cannot be granted patent protection, it is available for everyone and for free, since it is part of public domain557. It was previously stated, in the chapter dedicated to the incompatibility between the TRIPS and the CBD, that between the two international legal instruments there are actual inconsistencies, which were noted by many scholars after the adoption of the TRIPS. Interestingly, the Nagoya Protocol, which is the additional Protocol to the CBD entered into force after the adoption of the TRIPS, could have tried to solve said incompatibilities. Unfortunately though, during the negotiations, the Parties were mostly interested in tackling the aspects related to genetic resources, thus paying again less attention to TK. Consequently, they ended up establishing a system tackling TK, which is very similar to that of GR, leaving aside the fundamental differences between the two558. Within the Protocol, two articles can be identified as somehow tackling the issue of IPR system related to TK, namely Articles 4 and 7. Article 4 is dedicated to the relationship between the Protocol and other international agreements. The first paragraph states that the aim of the article is not that of creating a sort of hierarchy between the international agreements and most importantly, while the following paragraphs affirm that the Protocol does not intend to affect the Parties’ rights and duties under other international agreements entered into force prior to the Protocol, provided that said rights and duties do not go against the scope and object of the Convention, namely the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity559. The provisions of Article 4 allow Parties to enter other international agreements dealing with ABS, provided that they do not cause threats to biodiversity, thus going against the objective of the CBD, and that they do not render ineffective the ABS systems established under the Protocol560. Therefore, it could be stated that Article 4, and especially Paragraph 2, set some sort of limitations for future international agreements: the ABS system and PIC provision must be respected and enacted in order for Parties to be able to enter an international agreement concerning those issues. Always with regard to TK, these limitations are strengthened if interpreted in light of Article 7, which is dedicated to prior informed consent. As a matter of fact, Article 7 affirms that prior informed consent and approval of indigenous communities must always be met; therefore, if Parties wanted to enter an international agreement, they would still have to ensure that these provisions are enacted and respected561. Of course, some organizations representing the interests of indigenous people have expressed their concerns in regards to this particular issue, namely whether if patents and the IPRs system could provide effective protection to TK. For instance Third World Network, which is an NGO already described in the chapter dedicated to NGOs of this dissertation, drafted a booklet as the result of the “Workshop on Biodiversity, Traditional Knowledge and Rights of Indigenous People”, which involved several organizations aside from Third World Network, such as for example the Tebtebba Foundation and GRAIN. In this report, the authors outlined the main conclusions of the workshop, which included also how indigenous people conceived and viewed the current IPRs protection system in reference to TK562. According to them, the IPR system, and especially patents, cannot protect TK effectively enough for several reasons, such as for example the fact that the IPR system promoted by the TRIPS Agreement was born from Western views and interpretations of the world, which fundamentally differ from how indigenous people approach nature and the resources it provides them with563. Moreover, TK is conceived more as a commodity by Western countries, suitable for commercialization and profit, while indigenous people cherish TK as a gift either from nature or their ancestors, creators and great spirits. Hence, these contrasting views show that not even the preconditions are similar, leading to an inevitable incompatibility564. The report also restates the evidence identified also by Dutfield that TK is collectively held, or in some cases held by individuals but shared with communities through a complex system of regulations and customary norms. Moreover, patent protection is limited in terms of time, while TK is a dynamic concept, which is passed on from generation to generation, thus again proving the ineffective protection that patents would provide565. Several other reasons have been identified, for instance the fact that indigenous people already have a system of customary norms aimed at safeguarding and protecting their knowledge, which would inevitably be undermined by IPR system. Secondly, the IPR system, especially the one framed by the TRIPS Agreement, was not originally designed for the protection of TK, indeed, it was not even mentioned in the document, thus it cannot grant adequate protection566. Lastly, again the high social and financial costs of the IP protection are addressed, since the costs for IP protection would be extremely high not only from a monetary perspective, but also from a social one, ranging from the theft of TK and biopiracy, to the undermining and destruction of indigenous people’s cultures and ways of living. The report also addresses the issue of biopiracy as being intrinsically connected with the misappropriation and lack of protection of TK, as in many biopiracy cases not only GR are patented, but also the traditional knowledge associated to those resources, thus proving once again that the patenting of TK is far from ensuring protection and safeguarding, but is actually more likely to be a means undermining and endangering TK567.

Establishing national framework for the natural product certification would be one of the reliable solutions for this malignant problem resulting from distributional conflicts between private users and provider countries. Proper identification method should be further developed into a standard certification assessed case by case. When highly processed, multi-ingredient herbal products that are considered DNA metabarcoding will be the useful analytical tool in authentication where microsatellite-based barcoding for raw natural products followed by metabarcoding for the end product should be implemented [61, 62].

Sri Lanka as a country with a heritage of its own traditional medical system possesses the knowledge of indigenous communities that can be integrated in health care systems based on Western medicine. This would pave the way in implementing the concept of a One-World Medicine which is an ethically and socially acceptable alternative to forms of biopiracy. Most of the natural product exporting nations are lacking with the technological advancement due their Gross domestic product (GDP). Developing standard operating procedures (SOP) with the low-cost certification for the local use and export of plant and natural products will be helpful in mitigating the adulteration [63, 64].

Everywhere land resists and refuses—whales that destroy ships, bees that refuse to work, bombed islands that reconstitute themselves. The land also resists in the form of people; Indigenous peoples’ resistance is the land’s resistance. Indigenous people continue to subvert legal and capitalist technologies as part of that resistance. And technologies and technological beings resist too.

Patent law is patently designed to favor corporations, a legal technology whose colonizing functions are particularly evident when considering how Monsanto and other GMO producing giants are patenting seeds and genes they “find” throughout the world. Yet Indigenous communities are fighting this biopiracy by refusing the systems that permit corporations to patent life and that document knowledge for expropriation in the first place, by creating digital libraries of traditional knowledges, and sometimes by subverting patent law to claim rights to their own life worlds and knowledges.[35]

Sustaining Colonial Control of Biodiversity: The Role of Biotechnology and Intellectual Property Rights The globalization of industrialized agriculture has been under attack for more than twenty years. Increased production per hectare was achieved at significant environmental costs including the use of greater chemical and non-renewable energy inputs. The practice of monoculture, involving the transformation of centuries old traditions of self-sustaining crop rotational practices into cash crop agriculture, had serious ecological, biological and economic consequences for peasant farmers in the Third World. Modern agricultural methods may have created bumper harvests, however it also replaced biological diversity with uniformity making crops more vulnerable to attack from pests, leading to a greater dependence on chemical pesticides. The focus on the technologies involved in the production of chemical pesticides also served to marginalize existing indigenous knowledge about plant and seed varieties. The chemical revolution depended on the genetic resources that were cared for and sustained for thousands of years by peasant farmers, these were obtained free of charge by corporations and scientific institutions to develop high-yielding varieties that were dependent on chemical fertilizers for their yield levels and subsequently sold to the farmers as a package, complete with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Thus, these production techniques determined what kinds of crops could be grown in order to recoup investments on modern agricultural techniques. While economic value was placed on cash crops bought and sold through international markets, there was no evaluation, economic or otherwise, on the loss of agricultural biodiversity and its effects (Guha and Martinez-Alier 1997). For instance, there were more than 30,000 varieties of rice grown in India at the turn of the last century, today there are less than 50 varieties and is expected to diminish to ten in the next five years (Shiva 1993; Wilson 1992). Measuring output per hectare is an easy task but it is virtually impossible to construct indicators that measure genetic erosion. More importantly, it is impossible to forecast the ecological and economic consequences of such a loss. However, science has once again come to the rescue, with a new revolution: biotechnology. As we shall see, this new revolution of biotechnology is simply a logical continuation from the “chemical revolution” of the 1950’s and not only serves to sustain corporate and scientific structures of power but also threatens to colonize life forms and recolonize spaces in the Third World, a region that contains two-thirds of the world’s plant species. If the success of development was based on transforming “untamed” nature into a more manageable environmental resource, it should not come as a surprise that advances in science and technology would ultimately lead to the control and ownership of life itself, via the transformation of genetic material in plants and animals into “knowledge” and “intellectual property” belonging to corporations. The fact that this “knowledge” existed and has been used by indigenous communities for thousands of years is somehow not relevant: it is either dismissed as a “philosophical” issue or incorporated into the Western environmental discourse as “traditional ecological knowledge” that needs protection because of its “world heritage” value. Laws governing protection of intellectual property are governed by Western technocentric notions that are biased against indigenous communities (Blakeney 1997). Under existing laws, patents are granted for inventions that must be “novel” and the rights of the creator of this novelty are protected. Novelty is assessed by reference to prior technological use. There are millions of people in the world who do not fit this model, indigenous custodians of medical knowledge and peasant cultivators of seeds for example, and who are denied intellectual property protection. Patents and intellectual property laws on genetic resources such as seeds, protect and serve corporate and institutional interests of developed countries while violating peasant and farmers’ rights in the Third World. Medicinal plants, cared for and sustained by indigenous cultures, were appropriated by pharmaceutical companies without any payment and later used to develop profitable drugs that were protected by patents and trademarks. The knowledge of indigenous cultures in recognizing and using the medicinal properties of these plants is positioned as “traditional” and not “novel” and hence can be obtained without payment, while the “knowledge” of pharmaceutical companies requires protection. Indigenous knowledge does not fit into the current intellectual property framework and their knowledge by itself has no “economic value” unless it is commodified for the purposes of the market. Only then can it be assigned “value” and be eligible for protection, which explains the current alacrity at which chemical and pharmaceutical corporations are investing in genetic engineering and biotechnology. Biotechnology, touted as a champion of sustainable development, simply sustains a more sophisticated mode of colonial control that continues to inscribe its violence on peasant communities. Peasant struggles to control seeds and medicinal plants are being fought in many countries and several social movements in Mexico, Latin America and Asia have raised these issues at international conventions of the United Nations Economic Program. The International Convention on Biodiversity was established at Rio de Janeiro in 1992 to address the implications of biodiversity conservation and use. However, as Shiva (1993: 151) argues, the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) was primarily “an initiative of the North to ‘globalize’ the control, management and ownership of biological diversity… so as to ensure free access to the biological resources which are needed as ‘raw material’ for the biotechnology industry”. The biodiversity “crisis” arose because of rampant industrialization and unbridled economic growth resulting in habitat destruction and the replacement of diversity with homogeneity in agriculture and forestry (Shiva 1993). This crisis is almost always represented as a Third World phenomena and the solution developed and applied by the North is to conserve biodiversity in the South. Evidence of this can be seen in policy documents of the World Bank and United Nations Environmental Program as well as in scientific texts. For instance, in his popular book The Diversity of Life, Edward Wilson describes in detail the biological history of the planet and the negative human impact on biodiversity. While acknowledging that richer countries dictate the rules of international trade, Wilson claims that it is their responsibility to “use this power wisely”. In providing some solutions to the biodiversity problem, Wilson advocates promoting sustainable development – for the “striving billions of rural poor in the Third World”. Almost nothing is said about the corresponding responsibility of the striving millions of urban rich in the First World. A similar slippage can be observed in the Agenda 21 document: the “action plan” for sustainability involves “enabling the poor to achieve sustainable livelihoods” (Hawken 1995: 216) without any mention of the unsustainable livelihoods of the rich that do not allow the poor to achieve sustainable livelihoods. Thus, sustainable development proceeds the way as development did – the problems are located in the South, the solutions in the North - and continues to obscure how the political economy of the process destroys biological diversity (Shiva 1991). Despite using the right phrases – “sustainable”, “inclusiveness”, “local custodians”, the CBD is very much a top down process imposed on local communities, similar to the way the “Green Revolution” was orchestrated. The CBD negotiations took place after years of North-South conflicts over resources and rising environmental concern. The initial position was that genetic resources were a “common heritage to man” (Downes 1996: 171) and “biodiversity information belonged to no one and could be exchanged freely among the countries of the world”. Developing countries, justifiably suspicious of the price they will pay for this “free exchange” of information supported the current view as expressed in Article 15 of the CBD that provided national sovereignty over genetic resources, “combined with an obligation to facilitate access by other countries” (Bugge and Tvedt 2000). This “obligation” is to be operationalized through granting of individual permits to interested parties, raising an interesting question: while “sovereignty” over genetic resources is now clearly established, there is no mention in the CBD about ownership of the resources, whether by the state, private landowners or indigenous communities through common property rights. Conflicting interests over resources between nation states probably resulted in the “constructed ambiguity” of many of the articles in the CBD that do not provide legal rights to any party in particular. The CBD is essentially a comprise agreement between conflicting North-South interests. While 172 countries have ratified the CBD, the United States, not unsurprisingly, refused to ratify the convention on the grounds that it would pose a threat to the U.S. biotechnology industry. Although the CBD was a first step in addressing issues of biodiversity and conservation, it did very little in real terms for indigenous and peasant communities who were protesting the violation of their rights. Technocentric notions strongly informed strategies of biodiversity conservation and the CBD concentrated too heavily on issues of financing, access of business corporations to genetic diversity, and technology transfer than on peasant and indigenous peoples’ rights. Critics point out that the CBD placed too much faith on biotechnology and technological fixes to prevent loss of biodiversity, creating “a reliance on the diversity created through technology which would replace the respect for the diversity found in nature” (Munson 1995). Article 2 of the CBD gives states the “sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental and developmental policies” along with the responsibility to ensure that these activities “do not cause damage to the environment beyond the areas of national jurisdiction” (Hallman, 1995). While this might appear to be a victory for Third World nations over the developed countries, there are grave doubts whether the ownership of genetic resources by states will help the rural poor or indigenous communities (Guha and Martinez-Alier 1997). The imposition of market economies on transactions that were out of the market, such as the “subsistence” economies of peasant populations or genetic resources used by them, confers a value and a price based on an external political economy, a price that is bound to be very low because these communities are poor to begin with. As McAfee (1999) argues, if the distribution of the benefits of biodiversity is to be determined by market forces, then the world’s economic elites will benefit disproportionately. Compensation based on market mechanisms will simply serve to further disempower and impoverish the rural poor. Several farmers’ organizations, indigenous groups and NGO’s are fighting this battle at different levels and the fight to maintain possession of land and resources is not just an economic struggle, it is a cultural struggle fought by communities to ensure their survival. While their efforts have contributed to the recognition at the Rio Convention that indigenous peoples have used and conserved genetic resources for thousands of years, the CBD does not ensure their ownership and management rights to these resources. Allowing these rights to be legislated by nation states is also problematic given the nexus between governments, corporations and international trade institutions, none of which represents interests of indigenous or peasant communities.

According to [3], the definition of biopiracy is “the unauthorized extraction of biological resources and/or associated traditional knowledge from developing countries, or the patenting of spurious inventions based on such knowledge or resources without compensation.” The hidden cases of biopiracy were started opposed, and the term biopiracy was coined in the 1990s by environmentalists and nongovernmental organizations [6]. Biopiracy as “a silent disease” is hardly detectable because it frequently does not leave any traces. Unfortunately, the electronic media favours to highlight environment pollution and deforestation, while biopiracy incidents are less reported. This silent pillaging is depriving countries that lack proper advancement in biotechnology primarily in Africa, Latin America, and Asia of the means to financially support developing and sustaining biotechnological projects. Biopiracy disrupts biodiversity conservation efforts [7–9].

Mexico again “Two collecting expeditions, both funded by the US National Institutes of Health, have halted their bioprospecting in Mexico while they wait to see what the new government headed by Vicente Fox does, or doesn't do, about his country's sovereignty over plant germ plasm. The expeditions, composed of US and Mexican researchers and begun under the former Mexican government, which had been in power for 80 years, have been accused of exploiting indigenous peoples. In one of the projects, sponsored by the University of Georgia, researchers collected plants and interviewed traditional healers in Chiapas regarding the substances they use. In the other, the University of Arizona and the National Autonomous University of Mexico planned to collect plants used by the Mayans. Any discoveries useful to industrialized medicine would be developed by American Home Products, a United States–based pharmaceutical corporation. A bizarre case of seed patenting

A Canadian federal judge created an unusual precedent this spring when he found a Saskatoon farmer liable for genetically engineered rape oil plants that he said he never wanted. Investigators from the biotech giant Monsanto had taken samples from a field tended by Percy Schmeiser, a 70-year-old farmer, and found them to contain Monsanto-engineered genes for tolerance to a herbicide that Monsanto makes. Apparently pollen from the seeds had blown in from the fields of neighboring farmers. Schmeiser says he has been growing oilseed rape (canola) for 40 years, using the time-honored method of saving seeds from one year's harvest to plant the next year. He denied that he deliberately used, or even wanted, the seeds from Monsanto, which requires that farmers repurchase seed each year. The judge ruled that, regardless of whether the plants were invaders or not, Schmeiser must pay the multinational corporation about $85,000 and promise not to use the seed again. Schmeiser was quoted as saying: “I've been using my own seed for years, and now farmers like me are being told we can't do that anymore if our neighbors are growing [genetically modified] crops that blow in. Basically, the right to use our own seed has been taken away” (Marc Kaufman, “Farmer Liable for Growing Biotech Crops,” Washington Post, 30 Mar 2001, p. A3).”

Relational Big Data transformations, reconfiguring research in the twenty-first century, efface African data sovereignty, national sovereignty, epistemological sovereignty and DNA/gene sovereignty in ways that are reminiscent of the colonial epoch. Put differently, Big Data and the Internet of Things are open and relational in the sense of conjoining or linking various human and nonhuman objects, and datasets – relational theorists presuppose that entities are not important in themselves, since for them what matters most are the relational data between the entities and not the entities themselves (Crellin 2016; Kitchin 2014; Marton et al. 2013). In other words, as much as colonialists denied African autonomy and sovereignty, while using the same binary logic to distinguish themselves from the purported African Other, contemporary theories on data relationality/relational ontologies similarly deny autonomy and sovereignty to Africans who are depicted as indistinct from nonhumans from whom data can be extracted without the necessity of consent and privacy. Theorised in terms of relationality rather than hospitality, African people are ambiguated, they are denied autonomy and sovereignty and then deemed to be indistinct and indiscernible from nonhuman animals. Effacing various forms of indigenous sovereignties, contemporary data relationality theories deny indigenous human essence, identity and autonomy – relational theories presume the absence of distinctions between the human and nonhuman, ethical and unethical, inside and outside, consent and dissent, the colonial and decolonial. Emphasising connections, relations and networks between otherwise distinct objects and subjects, data relationality defies distinctions/binaries/dichotomies (Ahn 2019; Latour 2005; Wildman 2006) in ways that generate ambiguities, uncertainties and hence ignorance. On the other hand, we argue, hospitality assumes the existence of distinctions between insiders and outsiders, assumes the existence of distinctions between humans and nonhumans (but does not necessarily assume an acrimonious relationship between them), and recognises the existence of African human essence, identity, autonomy and sovereignty. Thus, relational data assumptions of openness, borderlessness and unboundedness legitimise the contemporary implantations or insertions of smart electronic chips and intelligent nanobots (microscopic autonomous robots) into the bodies and brains of indigenous African people, who become subject to remote control and mind manipulation via the Internet of Things (an emergent tapestry of internet that connects various environmental objects and subjects imbued with sentience) and Big Data (huge volumes of data transmitted at high velocity from objects and subjects connected in the Internet of Things). The contemporary era is marked by the growth of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, which are unevenly centred in North America and China. Marked by the logics of economic and data extraction, Big Data has parallels with colonialism. Similar to colonialism, which placed Africans at the bottom of the world system, contemporary data colonialism places Africans at the “bottom of the data pyramid” in Arora’s (2016) sense. For this reason, while South Africa and Morocco have introduced biometric identification systems and machine to machine solutions, there are concerns that chipification and digitalisation of citizens’ identities intensifies surveillance systems and the attendant dictatorships by those who control the data notwithstanding its avowed relationality (Ndubuaku and Okereafor 2015; Breckenridge 2005; Duncan 2014). While relationality denies human essence and distinctions between humans and nonhumans, it is important to note that since the precolonial era, Africans were guided by tenets of Chivanhu/Ubuntu (from southern African languages including Shona, Nguni and Xhosa), which spell out African humanistic philosophies, including ethics and morality. In terms of Chivanhu/Ubuntu, human beings are expected to distinguish themselves from animals and nature by hunhu/unhu (although the Shona spellings are different, the meanings are the same) encompassing humanistic ethics, self-respect, accountability for one’s behaviour, civility, good manners, prudence, reverence of human nature, integrity, good behaviour, moral uprightness, humanness, respect for human life, respect for human dignity, etiquette, hospitality, autonomy, ownership and control of resources, and so on – these aspects should also apply in research that appreciates the hospitality of the Other (Hapanyengwi-Chemhuru and Makuvaza 2017; Pearce 1990). Although some scholars have argued that Africans are animists without making distinctions between humans and animals (Burnett and waKang’ethe 1994: 156), other scholars have correctly argued that Africans are not animists, do not worship nature or even ancestors but have the notion of God/Supreme Being (Bullock 1927; Nhemachena 2017; Tempels 1959; Gelfand 1959). Put in other words, the key question for Africans is not whether or not technological objects/nature has vitality or agency or is an actor, but that human beings are defined in terms of hunhu/unhu rather than simply in terms of vitality as some contemporary relational theorists would have it. In short, human beings in Africa are defined in terms of hunhu/unhu and not simply in terms of vitality/agency. The point here is that colonial scholarship has suffered from what is called the “crisis in representation” and there have been critical debates, for instance, as to whether anthropology, as a colonial discipline, accurately represented the colonised peoples, who are still deemed to be indistinct from nonhuman technological artefacts, in relational data systems. Of course, some colonial scholarship depicted Africans in ways that suited colonial racist ideologies and that portrayed Africans as beasts, as four legged, as one eyed monsters, and so on (Magubane 2007; Nhemachena 2017; Fanon 1963). Even Hegel, arrogantly, and in a racist way, described Africans as children of the forest, as wild and at the level of nature, as lacking morals, as people without history and as inconsequential in world history and therefore as fit for enslavement in the matrix of racial relations of the world (Adegbindin 2015; Terada 2019; Andindilile 2016). Because Africans were dehumanised and deanthroposised, as it were, during colonialism within which they were depicted and treated as indistinct from machines and animals, emancipation for them does not lie in postanthropocentrism or posthumanism but in humanisation wherein hunhu/unhu, rather than mere vitality or entanglements, would be central in matters of data collection. In other words, African humanism is traceable not necessarily to the European Enlightenment but to precolonial African Chivanhu/Ubuntu. Put differently, the Enlightenment humanised Europeans some of whom became colonialists who dehumanised African people whom they subjected to [data] colonialism.

The polls are in: President Joe Biden’s debate face-plant has put him in his worst electoral shape of the 2024 election. More voters now than ever say they have an unfavorable opinion of the president, think he’s too old for the job and want someone else leading the Democratic ticket this fall. No incumbent president has had an approval rating this low at this stage of the election since George H.W. Bush more than three decades ago — and, other than Biden’s 2024 opponent, former President Donald Trump, no incumbent has trailed this far behind in the horse race polling since Jimmy Carter’s reelection bid 44 years ago. The latest numbers have added to the pressure on Biden to mount a quick comeback — or drop out of the race before his party officially designates a nominee. A string of rigorous-but-fast-twitch polls show a post-debate slide for Biden — who was already struggling to break out from behind Trump. Three of them, including a New York Times/Siena College survey released Wednesday afternoon, showed Trump with a 6-point lead among likely voters. Given Republicans’ advantage in the Electoral College, that kind of national margin would likely equate to a decisive Trump victory. The New York Times/Siena College poll showed Trump leading Biden among likely voters, 49 percent to 43 percent, up from a 3-point lead before the debate. That’s a real — but not overwhelming — shift that lines up with the other polling conducted in the wake of Biden’s debate with Trump. A few other recent polls show eroding numbers for Biden but with slightly smaller margins. Each poll differs slightly from the others, including in methodology. But taken together they paint a bleak portrait: The incumbent president who has struggled for months to close a persistent polling gap has now fallen further behind. Already reviled by Republicans, Biden’s small drop appears to come mostly from self-identified Democrats and independents. Typically, these would be the easiest voters for Biden to win back. But his broader liabilities make that difficult. Here’s what to know about Biden’s post-debate polling: The polls haven’t moved that much, but it’s an important shift Quantifying the magnitude of Trump’s post-debate bounce and Biden’s slide is more complicated than it might seem. Some of the new polls, like CNN’s and The Wall Street Journal’s, are from outlets whose most recent trendlines date back months, meaning changes in the numbers might reflect a lot more than just the debate. And the FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics averages — which are intentionally slower-moving measurements — still include pre-debate polls. Those high-quality polls are most useful in understanding the current state of the race, and they show a solid Trump lead. The Wall Street Journal hadn’t polled the race since February, but Trump’s 6-point lead in the post-debate survey was up from a 2-point advantage in the previous poll. And while CNN’s Trump +6 poll was unchanged from the previous survey in April, it underscores that even in the best-case scenario, the debate was a missed opportunity. Five pollsters who had a pre-debate poll in the month of June have also conducted a survey since the debate, allowing us to understand the debate’s effects, and four of them show Trump gaining on the margin — but none by more than a 4-point swing. Those aren’t the kinds of massive swings that have sometimes occurred after major events in past elections, but they’re significant. After all, it’s not unusual for polling to shift against the candidate widely seen as the “loser” of a televised debate — both because the debate is fresh on voters’ minds and because that candidate’s supporters are less likely to respond to polls after a poor performance. Ever since the debate, the Biden campaign has warned the media — and skittish Democrats — that a spate of bad polling was on the way, pointing to history and political science research that “non-response bias” — changes in response patterns that cause dips in a candidate’s support after a bad debate because fewer of that candidate’s voters respond to pollsters — would overstate the lasting damage for Biden. But, notably, that may not be happening in this case. The New York Times’ Nate Cohn wrote that self-identified Democrats and Republicans answered the new survey at roughly equal rates. That’s just one poll, but it suggests that the small dip for Biden is not an artifact of trying to poll in the immediate wake of a major news event. Biden’s position in the polls is even worse when you consider how hard it is to gain ground in this election Voters are familiar with both candidates in the rematch of the 2020 election, and Biden and Trump have been neck-and-neck in the polling for months, with only small changes. So even as surveys show voters consider Trump the victor of last week’s debate by a three-to-one margin, major changes in the race were always unlikely thanks to intense polarization. MOST READ Main.Geiger.TrumIINATO.Illustration.Override.png The world wasn’t ready for Trump in 2016. It’s not making that mistake this time. American allies fear Biden is finished and can’t beat Trump Biden tried to put his campaign crisis behind him. It isn’t working yet. Biden Skeptics Debate Whether to ‘Get a Spine’ Opinion | The Strange Future After a Second Trump Term Since launching in March, FiveThirtyEight’s Biden-Trump polling average has traded within an extremely narrow band: from Trump +2.4 points, to Biden +0.3 points. (It currently stands at Trump +2.3 points, just a hair off his high-water mark.) Biden had taken the slightest of leads in the weeks after Trump’s criminal conviction in May, but that bounce has quickly been erased since the debate. It’s left Biden in a hole larger than all but two incumbents dating back to 1980: Carter and Trump, who were both defeated for reelection. The Biden campaign has been eager to seize on results showing only a modest decline in the president’s standing since the debate. In an effort to pre-but the New York Times/Siena poll on Wednesday, a memo from top campaign officials to staffers highlighted those smaller shifts and warned that “it will take a few weeks” to determine how the debate affected the race. But that also obscures a basic reality: Biden was narrowly losing before the debate, and he’s losing by an even greater margin now. That’s a particularly rough situation for a candidate who has had little success making up ground in the polls — even after pouring nearly $115 million into advertising to date, according to AdImpact. In a race likely to be determined by the smallest of margins, Biden needed an event that could break through the noise and shake things up. He challenged Trump to debate and helped set its rules of engagement. Tens of millions of Americans tuned in. And the gambit backfired.

He said Biden, 81, would have elicited more compassion by simply saying he botched the debate, apologizing and vowing to do better next time — instead of blaming a cold and lack of rest for his blunders. Biden, the oldest president in US history, insists that he has not suffered from declining health or cognitive abilities since taking office four years ago. Paterson felt that Biden should have apologized for his clunky debate performance, instead of blaming a cold for his blunders. He said Trump, 78, is now well positioned to win back the presidency, noting that Vice President Kamala Harris’ public opinion poll numbers are worse than Biden’s, and that it would be hard for any another lesser known candidate to gain traction in just a few months before the election. “You’re going to have to go up against Donald Trump who is playing with the house’s money right now. That is going to be a difficult task for President Biden or whomever would come off the bench and take his place,” Paterson told host John Catsimatidis. Trump has his own serious legal woes, but he caught a break last week when the US Supreme Court issued a ruling granting presidents immunity for “official acts” that could impact ongoing criminal cases.

President Joe Biden was crystal clear on Friday: Despite all the noise and the questions, he is staying in the 2024 presidential race. Unfortunately for President Biden, the betting markets weren't particularly moved by his announcement. And in the latest 2024 presidential election odds, Biden remains a big underdog to former president Donald Trump. Biden also remains behind his own vice president, Kamala Harris, in the latest presidential election predictions based on the betting odds, which offer a different, if complementary, perspective to national polls when it comes to the race to win the Electoral College. President Joe Biden was +600 to win the 2024 election before his answer in an ABC interview, where he stated he would only step aside if "the Lord Almighty" came down and told him to do so. After that interview and Biden's tweet, he remained +600. Former president Donald Trump's election odds stayed at -200, with Trump still a massive favorite. Kamala Harris has the next best odds at +400. Donald Trump is the resounding favorite to win the 2024 presidential election at -200, a 53.76% chance to win the election. Trump moved to -200 after the first presidential election and saw his odds shorten slightly to -175 last week, but Trump's election odds have solidified at -200 since questions about Biden reached a fever pitch. Joe Biden Odds for President President Biden is +600 to win reelection. Biden's presidential election odds equal a 11.52% chance to win the 270 electoral college votes necessary to return to the White House. Biden was +163 (33.31% chance) before the first debate and plummeted to +425 immediately after, before moving to +550. This is the worst Biden's election odds have been in the entire 2024 election campaign, despite the president's insistence that he will not step aside and will continue to pursue a second term. Kamala Harris Odds for President Vice President Kamala Harris remains the candidate with the second-best chance to win the election, according to the odds-based presidential election predictions. Harris is now +400 to win the 2024 election, a 16.13% chance of victory in November. These are Harris' best odds for president of this presidential race. Before the debate, Harris was a +5000 long shot, with a 1.72% chance of winning the presidency. Immediately following that first debate, Harris' odds vaulted all the way to +1200. Earlier this week, her odds got slightly longer at +1600, before moving to +1100 on Tuesday, then to +550 overnight on Wednesday and now to +400.

Democrats are growing increasingly nervous that President Biden’s campaign is sinking after his disastrous debate performance — and their hopes of retaining the Senate and retaking the House in November could sink along with it.

In key contests across the country, especially in the Senate, Democrats have generally been outperforming Biden in polls, teeing up a potentially stark contrast with the 2020 election when he generally outshined members of Congress and other contenders in his party.