Enyinna Nwauche Books

Focusing on the protection of indigenous knowledge in Africa, this book explores its role as both a form of property and a vital element for indigenous communities. It emphasizes the importance of community members in the creation and preservation of this knowledge while addressing the complexities and tensions that arise between individuals, their communities, and broader political contexts. The text offers insights into potential strategies for managing these relationships and safeguarding indigenous knowledge.

This book evaluates the protection of traditional cultural expressions in Africa using South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana as case study examples in the light of regional and international approaches in this respect. Such protection is considered in the context of a combination of positive protection models such as the protection offered by intellectual property rights and negative protection such as tangible heritage protection and authorisations by national competent authorities. These models are in turn assessed taking into consideration human and peoples’ rights frameworks, which recognise and affirm group entitlement to, among others, traditional cultural expressions. These frameworks ensure that such traditional cultural expressions are available for further innovation and creativity.