Kelly Bannister is co-director of the POLIS Project on Ecological Governance at the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria. She combines her background in ethnobiology, ecological governance and applied research ethics to address ethical and legal issues in research involving biodiversity, Indigenous knowledge and cultural heritage. Her focus has been the role of governance tools (such as ethical codes, community research protocols and research agreements) to address power relations and facilitate equitable research practices in collaborative research. Her current work explores the potential of relational ethics, intercultural communication, conflict resolution and embodied peacemaking to move cross-cultural research ethics policy and practice to new levels of awareness. She has been involved in ethics policy research, analysis and development – locally, nationally and internationally – in a variety of capacities, including assisting Aboriginal organizations in developing their own research ethics policies and serving as consultant to Environment Canada on drafting national guidelines for access and benefit sharing of biological/genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge. She co-chairs the Ethics Program for the International Society of Ethnobiology and coauthored (with Preston Hardison) ‘Ethics in Ethnobiology: History, International Law and Policy, and Contemporary Issues,’ published in Ethnobiology (2011).

Thomas Burelli is Professor of Law at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law. His general research interests in law are at the intersection of cultural property, traditional knowledge, biotechnology, biodiversity, intellectual property ethics and decolonization. Thomas specializes in legal anthropology and intellectual property (University of Paris I and the University of Paris VIII). In his thesis project, he analyzes theoretically and empirically non-governmental and non-legal instruments implemented in France and Canada to regulate the circulation of traditional knowledge associated with biodiversity. Thomas has conducted several field missions in New Caledonia, French Polynesia and French Guyana, and was associated in 2010 with the draft bill on the protection of Indigenous intangible heritage in New Caledonia (Projet de loi du pays relative à la sauvegarde du patrimoine culturel immaterial autochtone). In 2013, he organized several workshops in French Polynesia for the development of ethical codes. This led to the draft of three codes of ethics (one for a French research laboratory, one for the French Polynesian government and one for an association of local Polynesians). Thomas has published several articles on the protection of traditional knowledge in France and on the relationships between researchers and Indigenous communities related to the access and use of traditional knowledge.

Larry Chartrand has been an active faculty member at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law since 1994. He was recently appointed director of the Native Law Centre at the University of Saskatchewan. He has previously served as the director of the Aboriginal Self-Government Program at the University of Winnipeg from 2004 to 2007. From 1991 to 1994, he was the director of the Indigenous Law Program at the University of Alberta. Professor Chartrand’s research interests include Aboriginal law and constitutional law, particularly Métis rights and Indigenous peoples’ laws. He is currently the Principal Investigator for a major SSHRC grant to undertake research relating to Métis treaties in Canada. Professor Chartrand holds a BEd from the University of Alberta, an LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School, an LLM from Queen’s University, and is currently a PhD Candidate at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario.

Jeremy de Beer is a tenured Full Professor of Law at the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Law, Technology and Society, where he creates and shapes ideas – about technology innovation, intellectual property, and global trade and development. As an interdisciplinary scholar, he has published five books and more than three-dozen peer-reviewed chapters and articles across the disciplines of law, business, political science, international relations and public policy. He is also a cofounder and director of the Open African Innovation Research (Open AIR) network, which connects dozens of researchers across African countries, Canada and elsewhere to scale up innovation by easing tensions between intellectual property and access to knowledge. Professor de Beer is also a practicing lawyer and expert consultant, and has argued numerous cases before the Supreme Court of Canada, advised businesses and law firms both large and small, and consulted for agencies from national governments to the United Nations. His current work focuses on solving practical challenges related to innovation in the digital economy, life science industries and clean technology sector.

Daniel W. Dylan is Assistant Professor at the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law, Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. His current research interests include a mix of Aboriginal, traditional knowledge, intellectual property, environmental, mining and natural resources and administrative law, with a focus on the mechanics of cultural and environmental protection, appropriation, and the remediation thereof, as well as modern treaties, how they are negotiated, and their power to protect Aboriginal peoples in the Canadian constitutional framework. His most recent articles have appeared in the Journal of Environmental Law and Practice, the University of New Brunswick Law Journal and the Lakehead Law Journal.

Timothy J. Hodges is Professor of Practice in Strategic Approaches to Global Affairs at McGill University’s Institute for the Study of International Development in Montreal, Canada, where his research focuses on the application of strategic foresight methodologies in global affairs and the negotiation and implementation of international sustainable development treaties. Concurrently, Professor Hodges is adjunct faculty in the TransDisciplinary University, Bangalore, where he is developing a graduate-level course on negotiating and implementing international environmental treaties. Professor Hodges served as co-chair of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization between 2006 and 2010. Prior to his appointment as co-chair, he was head of the Canadian delegation to the access and benefit sharing (ABS) negotiations and founding co-chair of Canada’s Federal-Provincial-Territorial Committee on Access and Benefit Sharing, 2004–6.

Timothy Hodges is a former career diplomat and is currently Principal Consultant at Timothy J. Hodges and Associates, providing strategic advisory services across the globe to governments, industry, private non-profit organizations and Indigenous communities.

Roger Hunka has founded several non-profit, charitable and for-profit entities. Most these have been to accommodate and advance the social, cultural, educational, economic and political aspirations and needs of Indigenous peoples. Roger has served as the National Bilateral Relations director for the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, the director of Intergovernmental Affairs for the Maritime Aboriginal Peoples Council, the director for the Maritime Aboriginal Aquatic Resources Secretariat, and Producer for Mi’Kmaki the Map, Mi’kmaq Language Learning Series, Mi’Mac Business Finder and Sedco Small Business Learning Series. Roger has also served as executive director of the Native Council of Nova Scotia, President of Mi’Kmakik Development Corporation, as well as director on the boards of several charities and non-profit entities, and advisor on ‘Indigenous rights development.’ He is currently director of Intergovernmental Affairs at the Maritime Aboriginal Peoples Council (MAPC) in Truro, Nova Scotia.

Christopher Koziol has been the project manager for the ABS Canada initiative since May 2015. He holds a JD from the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law and an MA in International Affairs from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs in Ottawa, Ontario. His current research interests include domestic implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples and reform proposals for the United Nations Charter, the latter of which is the subject of a forthcoming publication in the Repertory of Practice of United Nations Organs.

Jock R. Langford was the lead negotiator for Canada on the Indigenous-related articles in the Nagoya Protocol (2008–10). While at the Biodiversity Convention Office (BCO) of Environment Canada (EC) he was a member of both the interdepartmental and the Federal/Provincial/Territorial committees (2004–10) that developed the National ABS Strategy. In 1987, Langford joined Consumer and Corporate Affairs Canada where he worked on intellectual property policy including the negotiation of the WTO TRIPS Agreement (1990–2) and the patenting of plants and animals (1990–2000). At Industry Canada, Langford organized the WIPO fact-finding meetings on traditional knowledge across Canada (1998) and was co-editor of Department of Indian and Northern Development (DIAND), ‘Intellectual Property and Aboriginal People: A Working Paper’ (1999). At EC, he was a main organizer of the regional Indigenous ‘consultations’ (2009), the Tsleil-Waututh International Gathering on Traditional Knowledge (2008) and the Canada-Mexico International Expert Meeting on ABS in Cuernavaca (2008). Langford’s formal training includes a BSc (Biology) and a BSc (Agricultural Economics) both from the University of Guelph (2002). He retired from the federal government in 2013 and is now consulting on ABS and the protection of traditional knowledge.

Joshua Nichols is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Alberta, and a fellow with the Center for International Governance Innovation. His research focuses on the relationship between the meaning of reconciliation, Aboriginal self-government and the rule of law in settler-colonial contexts. Joshua obtained a PhD in Law from the University of Victoria and his JD from the University of British Columbia. He also holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Toronto, MA in sociology and a BA (honours) in political science from the University of Alberta. He is a member of the Law Society of British Columbia and his work has been published in a number of journals including the UBC Law Review, the Journal of Historical Sociology, Space and Culture, and Body and Society. He is the author of The End(s) of Community: History, Sovereignty, and the Question of Law (2013) and a forthcoming book investigating the foundations of Aboriginal law.

Chidi Oguamanam is a full Professor at the Centre for Law, Technology, and Society, the Centre for Environmental Law and Global Sustainability and the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics at the University of Ottawa. He obtained his LLM and PhD in Law from the University of British Columbia. Called to the Bar in Nigeria and Canada, Dr. Oguamanam had his formative education (LL.B) at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. He also holds LL.M degree from the University of Lagos. His research examines the practical link in law and policy around biodiversity conservation, Indigenous knowledge and intellectual property in the contexts of the use of plant genetic resources for food, agriculture, medicinal and therapeutic interventions within both traditional and orthodox medical cultures. That interdisciplinary research enables him to work at diverse intersections of law and technology, especially agricultural biotechnology, and the application of new (digital) technologies in the context of exploitation and management of genetic resources endemic in Indigenous and local communities across the globe. Named to the Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, Dr. Oguamanam is a cofounder of Open African Innovation Research (Open AIR) and the founder and Principal Investigator of the ABS Canada initiative. A Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), Dr. Oguamanam is the author of International Law and Indigenous Knowledge (2010) and Intellectual Property in Global Governance (2012), and co-editor of Innovation and Intellectual Property: Collaborative Dynamics in Africa (2014).

Frédéric Perron-Welch is a Canadian lawyer providing legal advice to Canadian and international public, private and civil sector organizations on biodiversity, biosafety, biotrade, biotechnology, clean energy, climate change, sustainable agriculture and sustainable forestry. He has worked in international development for ten years and has published legal works on biodiversity, biosafety and access to genetic resources. He has worked with a number of international agencies (e.g. CIFOR, GIZ, IDLO, SCBD, UNEP, UNDP and UEMOA) on projects in Algeria, Benin, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, South Africa and South Korea. He holds an LLB with a Specialization in Environmental Law from Dalhousie University, and an MA in environmental history from the University of Toronto. He is currently the President of BIONOMOS Law, a biodiversity consulting company focused on environmental law and sustainability, as well as the director of Sustainable Development at Earth Alive Clean Technologies, where he is responsible for linking Earth Alive Clean Technology’s business to the Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030 and leading international sustainable development initiatives in the agriculture, biocontrol and mining sectors.

Freedom-Kai Phillips, BSc (Eastern Michigan University), MA (Seton Hall University), LLB (Dalhousie University), LLM (University of Ottawa), is a Research Associate with the International Law Research Program (ILRP) at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), a Legal Research Fellow with the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL) and the Manager of the CISDL International Secretariat. Phillips has most recently served as interim director of the Centre for Law, Technology and Society at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law. In the past, Phillips has served as Legal Researcher for the Ramsar Convention Secretariat, a representative to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, and as a private sector sustainability consultant. His publications focus on access and benefit sharing (ABS), governance of marine and terrestrial biodiversity, financial incentives relating to sustainable development, carbon offsetting and renewable energy promotion and legal measure to support achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Peter W. B. Phillips is Distinguished Professor and founding director of the Johnson-Shoyama Center for the Study of Science and Innovation Policy at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. He earned his PhD at the LSE and practiced for thirteen years as a professional economist in industry and government. At the University of Saskatchewan, he was the Van Vliet Research Professor, created and held an NSERC-SSHRC Chair in Managing Technological Change in Agriculture, was director of the virtual College of Biotechnology, and was the founding director of the JSGS. He has had appointments at the LSE, OECD, European University Institute in Florence, University of Edinburgh and University of Western Australia. He was a founding member of the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee and was on the boards of Canadian Agri-food Policy Institute, Pharmalytics and Ag-West Bio, Inc. He has held more than fifteen peer-reviewed grants worth over $250 million and is the author or editor of fifteen books, and more than sixty journal articles and fifty-five book chapters.

Stuart J. Smyth is Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and holds the Industry Funded Research Chair in Agri-Food Innovation at the University of Saskatchewan. Dr. Smyth’s research focuses on innovation and agriculture and the resulting impacts. He was part of a group of academics that received $5.4 million in funding over five years in 2009 from Genome Canada to examine the genomic, economic, environmental, ethical, legal and social (GE³LS) issues pertaining to bioproducts and biofuels. Recent publications in 2014 include as co-editor with Peter Phillips and David Castle of the Handbook on Agriculture, Biotechnology and Development, a fifty-one-chapter book, and co-editor with Jose Falck-Zepeda and Karinne Ludlow of Socio-Economic Considerations in Biotechnology Regulation.