The non-evolution of cooperation: The influence of economic interests in the exclusion of the bioprospecting agenda from the International Antarctic Regime

Abstract

This paper’s title paraphrases Robert Axelrod’s best seller “The Evolution of Cooperation”. Instead of concentrating on the development of international cooperation, we aim at understanding why cooperation does not evolve. We focus on the case of bioprospecting in Antarctica. We believe governmental decisions to keep that topic out of the Antarctic regulatory regime are influenced by firms that are well positioned as global players. We also believe that cooperation can be promoted by players that aim at improving their global relative economic position. We adopt the number of Antarctic patents as a proxy for global competitiveness, and the number of bioprospecting-related working, information, and background papers submitted by governments to consultative meetings (which we call 'position papers') as a proxy for cooperativeness. Though we found a correlation between both variables, it is not statistically significant if the US is excluded from the dataset. Still, our hypothesis on the relationship between economic competitiveness and non cooperation seems to hold in the case of Antarctic patent leaders that did not submit any position papers. Also, we found that other Antarctic patent leaders, mainly claiming countries, have adopted a low cooperative position. Higher cooperative positions were found among lower Antarctic innovators. We conclude by stressing that both cooperation and non cooperation, as political economy phenomena, have distributional consequences. Therefore, we ask whether laggard Antarctic innovators with low absorptive capacities will be able to improve their global relative economic position in case bioprospecting is finally included in the Antarctic regime.