Sui generis has been implemented for protection of indigenous rights---empirics

Other countries have modified existing IP regimes or have created sui generis schemes to deal with specific indigenous peoples. Perhaps most boldly, New Zealand has amended its trademarks laws to protect indigenous designs, requiring the government to veto any application for marks whose use or registration would offend a significant portion of the community, legislation that has the practical effect of preventing trademarks incorporating Maori sacred designs. 111 Other countries including [*527] Panama, Nigeria, Tunisia, and the Philippines have passed “copyright-like’ laws allowing, inter alia, collective ownership of sacred indigenous objects, fee distribution to communities whose folklore serves as a source for creative works, and the criminalization of “international distortion” and misuses of folklore. 112

Third, questions of indigenous rights and traditional knowledge have caught the attention of the United Nations, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the Organizational of American States. For instance, the widely-debated UNESCO treaty on intangible heritage explicitly includes “representations” and “cultural spaces,” and is aimed at “integrating” the physical and the intangible managing the “grey area’ between the two, including local input into resource management. 113 The Protocol of San Salvador addresses similar issues, though the document concentrates on concerns of just compensation and access to knowledge more so than its counterparts. 114 Finally, and perhaps the most significantly, traditional knowledge was singled out for potential WTO regulation under the TRIPS agreement during the Doha round, suggesting the possibility of more aggressive enforcement (e.g. fines and retaliatory trade measures, rather than the purely normative force derived from proclamations by other international institutions). 115