Articles by Philippe Cullet

Noting that the central government has taken constructive steps to prepare the water sector to address the multiple challenges ahead of it, this comment points out that it is the states that have the primary constitutional mandate over water. States have to not only adopt legislation based on the centre’s groundwater model law, adapting its principles to local circumstances, but also framework legislation on the lines proposed by the centre.

Groundwater is now the main source of water for all major water uses in India and needs to be given greater policy attention. The fact that it is a politically sensitive topic because any reform will affect some powerful constituencies cannot be an excuse anymore for lack of action. Inaction only increases existing inequalities in access to groundwater by progressively reinforcing the power of bigger landowners at the expense of other water users. This article examines the basic principles governing access to and use of groundwater inherited from the past to the Model Bill for the Conservation, Protection and Regulation of Groundwater, 2011, which provides a basis for rethinking groundwater regulation.

This article discusses the central government policy for drinking water supply in rural areas. It examines its evolution from the 1970s onwards and focuses, in particular, on the reforms of the past decade, looking more specifically at the Swajaldhara Guidelines. These reforms are of capital importance because they seek to completely change the rural drinking water supply policy framework.

Thus far, debates relating to the adoption of the proposed amendments to the Patents Act 1970 have focused overwhelmingly on its consequences for the pharmaceutical sector. However, the Act is only one among several other legal instruments expected to have a significant impact on the future development of agriculture. This article argues for the widening of the patents debate to include agriculture, which under the current WTO regime, is now bound to its regulations relating to trade and intellectual property. It also looks at several legal instruments, already in place or in the offing, examining them together in the light of the linkages and overlaps between them. At the same time, these instruments need to be examined in context of the international framework, for increasingly, international treaties and conventions have come to exercise some influence at the national level.

The system proposed in the Biosafety Protocol that came into force in September 2003, needs to be urgently supplemented by liability rules. Despite the existence of such rules at the national level and some general principles at the international level, each country needs to develop separate rules for biotechnology. Switzerland's Gene Technology Law, adopted in 2003, may have pointers for similar legislation elsewhere.