IP rights schemes limit access to the international political economy while normalizing particular knowledges over others

The informational-genetic conception of life gives rise to value within a neoliberal economy – but it also intensifies the problematization of the governing of life. This thesis argued that the resulting tensions could be better understood from an analytic perspective that can grasp the wider social influence of the notion of the genetic code, which gave rise to a new system of truth over human existence, inscribed on the molecular level of the body – and which opened up the body to interventions on the molecular level. The analysis of IP’s encounter with a genetic dispositif was conducted on three different levels, reflecting a confrontation with the constituent elements of biopower: truth, the subject, and power exercised in the name of life (Rabinow and Rose 2006, 212). In this way, the analysis of IP’s treatment of genetic knowledge over life moved beyond previous critiques of the ‘commodification’ of life by means of IP. Instead of placing overwhelming emphasis on the determination of social relations by economic exchange processes, this analysis can account for a wider range of incentives and responsibilities for participation in the creation of knowledge. An adapted understanding of the role of law in a governmental system highlighted IP law’s contribution to the governing of life in an otherwise perplexing series of judgements on the definition of DNA and in strategic uses of IP ensuring open access to knowledge in a new somatic ethics. It argued that IP law is instrumental in setting up and ensuring the functioning of the market, but also begins to respond tactically to resistances created by the pervasive influence of the genetic dispositif. The increasing significance of the intersection between genetic conceptions of life and the IP regime intensified these tensions. An analysis of these tensions highlighted IP’s role in establishing control over knowledge for the purpose of participation in the bioeconomy, and its role in the normalisation of knowledge. In this reading, two trajectories of challenge were identified as significant sites of IP’s responsive engagement with exteriority (Golder and Fitzpatrick 2009, 56): the question of participation in the bioeconomy, and tensions surrounding the normalisation of knowledge. These were explored as unfolding contestations over truth discourses over life, responses to demands made by “genetic” subjects relating to control over genetic truth, and in new strategic interventions challenging IP’s relation to life. The analysis of these trajectories highlighted the particular processes of development within a “governmental” rationality, confronted with changing conceptions of life. This contributed to an understanding of governmentality by stressing the role of law as a tactics of the government of life, to an understanding of biopolitics by underlining adjustments to a rise of a new genetic and informational conception of life, and to the study of international relations by showing that international legal frameworks and institutions are integral to emerging key areas of political contestation based on the pursuit of life and health.