Biopiracy/Biotechnology Call for Essays

[Teresa Walsh <watkinsr at usfca.edu>]

CALL FOR ESSAYS

BIOPIRACY & BIOTECHNOLOGY

PEACE REVIEW, Winter 2000 (Volume 12, Issue 4)

Special Editors:	Eduardo Mendieta & Lois Lorentzen,
University of San Francisco

Deadline for Submissions:  July 14, 2000

Will the twenty-first century be the century of hitherto unimagined
transformations in which human beings control production, reproduction, and
the development of life itself?  Like never before, the aphorism "knowledge
is power" means "power is knowledge." Biotechnology allows humans to
manipulate genes, thus permitting us to re-arrange the grammar of life
itself.  Some claim that this "biotech century" may bring forth unthinkable
horrors as we manipulate nature to suit the human will.  Others claim that
this new science may cure our diseases, feed our hungry, provide us with
therapeutic drugs and alternative energy sources.  Will the technologies of
cloning, gene mapping, gene splicing, gene therapy, genetic modification of
organisms, bring us to a bright age of ecotopian justice or to a dark
eugenic dystopia?

In this special issue of Peace Review we invite essays on different aspects
of Biopiracy and Biotechnology, including:

1) Intellectual Property Rights - the commodification of nature, indigenous
rights to DNA/plants/pharmaceuticals, the patenting of life forms by
multinationals, third world/first world perspectives, discovering versus
inventing.

2) The Environment and Biotechnology - the patenting of seeds, genetically
modified organisms, genetically modified food (the recent Frankenfood
controversy), agribusiness and biotechnology, the recombinant growth
hormone and the third world.

3) Political and Economic Dimensions - third world biotechnology and the
foreign debt, national, regional, international regimes and biotech
regulation, monopolization of biotechnological knowledge.

4) Military uses of biotechnology.

5) Social consequences of biotechnology.  race relations, gene altering,
genetic therapy and screening, abortion and genetic screening.

6) Case Studies and Practical proposals to turn biotech knowledge over to
public institutions and non-profit organizations are welcome.

PEACE REVIEW is a quarterly, multidisciplinary, transnational journal of
research and analysis, focusing on the current issues and controversies
that underlie the promotion of a more peaceful world.  We define peace
research to include human rights, development, ecology, culture, race,
gender and related issues.  Our task is to present the results of this
research and thinking in short (no more than 3500 words), accessible and
substantive essays.

Please send for Peace Reviewís Writerís Guidelines by emailing
watkinsr at usfca.edu or by calling (415) 422-2910.

Send essay submissions by email attachment to:  watkinsr at usfca.edu.
Editorial correspondence, including manuscripts and disks can be sent to
Robert Elias, Peace Review, Peace and Justice Studies, University of San
Francisco, 2130 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA 94117, USA. Tel:
415-422-6349/2910. Fax:  415-422-5671, or 415-388-2631, Attn. Elias.
Email:  Eliasr at usfca.edu.

Teresa Walsh
Managing Editor
Peace Review