Board & Coordination

President, Third World Network

Sangeeta Shashikant is a legal and policy advisor for Third World Network, a research and advocacy organization. She obtained her Masters in Laws from the University College London in 2003 and her Bachelors in Laws, from the University of Malaya in 1999. She was elected as the President of the Board of Association for Plant Breeding for the Benefit of Society (APBREBES) in 2013 till to-date. She also writes for the South-North Development Monitor (SUNS).

Sangeeta Shashikant has extensive experience in research and advocacy on intellectual property and public policy matters. She has authored and contributed towards several publications including on Farmers’ Rights and plant variety protection such as

• International Contradictions on Farmers’ Rights: the interrelations between the international treaty, its Article 9 on Farmers’ rights and Relevant Instruments of UPOV and WIPO, Third World Network and Berne Declaration, 2015
• Plant Variety Protection in Developing Countries: A Tool for Designing a Sui Generis Plant Variety Protection System: An Alternative to UPOV 1991, APBREBES, 2015
• Farmers’ Right to Participate in Decision-making – implementing Article 9.2 (c) of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Working Paper, APBREBES, September 2016

Laurent Gaberell is a researcher and campaigner on food and agriculture at a swiss NGO called Public Eye. He has been previously working as a policy advisor on intellectual property and biodiversity at the Permanent Mission of Bolivia to the United Nations in Geneva (2009-2013) and a human rights expert at the Europe-Third World Centre (2014-2015).