Protection of Indigenous Legal Rights towards Traditional Knowledge Used by Foreign Parties According to International Law Perspective

Traditional Knowledge (TK) is a knowledge that indigenous people have over the results of interactions with their territories. Nowadays, TK is considered as a commodity for foreign parties, such as companies, for product development that can reduce research operations and costs. Oftentimes, the rights of indigenous peoples to TK are ignored for the commercial interests of the company. Internationally, regulations to accommodate TK has not yet been established, but the rights of indigenous peoples have been regulated in several legal instruments. This research showed that the rights of indigenous peoples to TK has been accommodated in international legal instruments such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Convention on Biological Diversity, and Nagoya Protocol. Base on the provisions of the CBD and the Nagoya Protocol, that all parties, foreign parties, who make use of traditional knowledge held by indigenous peoples must take the steps of Prior-informed consent, establish a Mutual Agreement Term (MTA), and establish access and benefit sharing (ABS) so that the benefits of using traditional knowledge can be returned to indigenous peoples for social, economic, cultural and general welfare.