More than One-Dimensionality: Brief Remarks on Pensée Complexe, Harmonization and Intangible Cultural Heritage

Abstract

This research considers, by a conceptual and philosophical–legal perspective, the tensions between the interest of harmonization of intellectual property and the protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Starting from the fact that the harmonization of IP has been promoted as a strategy of global legal integration, normative predictability, and legal certainty for transnational economic agents, this study underpins the challenges that cross this intention. ICH is also observed as a legal category grounded on collective, dynamic, and culturally situated logics. The article briefly remarks a critical reading regarding possible conceptual incompatibilities between these regimes, showing through pensée complexe that such tensions stem from deeper divergences, associated with the predominance of a unidimensional and reductive view of the relationship between IP and ICH.

1. Introduction

The harmonization of IP rules is largely part of contemporary debates on innovation, competitiveness and global markets. Multilateral treaties, regional initiatives and soft law instruments have been presented as responses to the normative fragmentation and legal obstacles imposed on the transnational circulation of goods, services and, even more, intangible assets (Straus 2023). Harmonization, throughout this panorama, is often associated with predictability, legal certainty and the promotion of innovation on a global scale.

In parallel, international cultural law manages the category of ICH, recognizing practices, knowledge, expressions and ways of life as cultural assets endowed with symbolic, identity and legal value. Unlike IP, ICH is not structured based on the recognition of exclusivity or strictly commercial forecast.

Given these conditions, this article starts with the following theoretical problem: to what extent do the assumptions that sustain the interest in harmonizing IP come into tension with the foundations of ICH? The investigation seeks to examine, at a conceptual level, the relationship between these two regimes, having as its theoretical branch the pensée complexe formulated by Morin (2011, 2013).

2. Methods

Qualitative research is carried out, based on a literature review, normative texts and contributions from the philosophy of law and cultural studies, without this choice representing a restriction to the adoption of epistemes from other fields of knowledge. The optioned method consists of critical observation of the institutes of IP and ICH, guided by the assumptions of pensée complexe (Morin 2011, 2013), notably the rejection of one-dimensional readings, the recognition of the dialogical coexistence of antagonistic conceptions, the understanding of the non-linear interdependence between law, economics and culture, the refusal of abstract legal universalisms through institutional contextualization, and the centrality of the human and ethical dimension in the evaluation of normative constructions.

3. Findings

3.1. Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH)

A priori, ICH (in Portuguese, Patrimônio Cultural Imaterial) marks a legal category based on assumptions different from those that guide IP. These are cultural goods defined primarily by their collective dimension, by intergenerational transmission, and also by the permanent adaptation to the historical and social conditions of the communities that recognize them as part of their identity. Jiménez (2024) observes that ICH involves practices and living expressions bequeathed by previous generations and passed on to their successors. It comprises oral traditions, scenic manifestations, social customs, rituals, celebrations, knowledge, and practices that are in dialog with nature and are crossed by cosmological conceptions, knowledge and techniques associated with practical and symbolic daily life. The “heritage” recognition of the existential conditions of different collectivities can contribute to cultural diversity in a context of increasing globalization.

ICH does not orbit on exclusivity or individual appropriation, but rather on the safeguarding, recognition and continuity of living cultural environments and practices. Its normativity is less associated with the protection of strict economic interests (in market premises, although it does not completely depart from them) and more with the affirmation and perpetuation of cultural diversity as an international legal value, which may suggest tensions between legal models based on fixation, defined ownership, and exclusive exploitation.

From the perspective of Andrade (2020, ebook), “the notion of intangible heritage was built through discourses and reflections around the concepts of culture, folklore, identity, tradition, memory, and history; themes that had traditionally been worked on by academia and contemporary social theory”.

ICH is therefore structured from a concept that deserves critical attention. The formal recognition of a certain good (in Portuguese, bem) as cultural heritage confers on it a specific legal status, but such a process raises something unsettling: why does the social and cultural value of a practice, knowledge or manifestation necessarily depend on its patrimonialization? In other words, why would something need recognition as patrimônio in order to be socially valued?

The notion of patrimônio, (i.e., the form used for heritage in Portuguese, Spanish and other languages), carries symbolic implications. From an etymological standpoint, the term refers to the idea of patrimonium, that is, that which belongs to the father, revealing a historical order marked by a patriarchal modus (Silva 2014). This is an aspect that is often neglected in common thought, although it should not go unnoticed by critical legal analysis, since it highlights the presence of gender asymmetries inscribed in the language and institutional categories of law.

And on the legal side, the mechanisms associated with ICH indicate the predominance of the public interest. It is a patrimônio that, by definition, does not belong to an individual alone but to the collectivity. At this point, the classic tension between the public and the private emerges. The recognition of institutes that elevate collective values implies the relativization of individual interests, which, in certain circumstances, are incompatible with public interest.

This incompatibility becomes evident when one considers the logic of exclusivist property. If an individual is the recipient of a privilege of use and enjoyment of a good, he exercises an entitlement over it that presupposes the erga omnes opposability of third parties. The legal recognition that others can use the same good under equivalent conditions requires a break with the traditional perspective of exclusivity, shifting the subject from the position of absolute holder to that of guardian or mediator of a good that, ultimately, belongs to everyone by virtue of a legal notion.

This discussion dialogs directly with the critique of dualistic approaches. From the rationale of pensée complexe (Morin 2011), it is necessary to question contemporary patrimonial expectations considering a purely dual reading. Such an approach leads to an oversimplification of the social and legal reality, unable to account for the symbolic, cultural and political density involved in ICH, as well as its relationship with IP rights. Far from being a strictly technical process, the patrimonialization of the immaterial is crossed by conceptual, historical and axiological disputes, so that its dialog with exclusivist pretensions supported by IP norms demands a broader understanding of the interests in place.

According to Moreno (2021, pp. 32–34), several instruments of international law recognize the protection of historical, artistic, and cultural heritage as part of human rights, linking preservation and access to cultural life. Among those mentioned by him, the following stand out: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which requires measures for the preservation and dissemination of culture (United Nations 1966, art. 15); the 1972 UNESCO Convention that establishes state duties to identify, protect and transmit heritage to future generations, inaugurating its understanding as a cultural right (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 1972); the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations 1948, art. 27) which ensures participation in cultural life, in the broad sense, later consolidated by General Comment No. 21 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 2009, art. 15); and the UNESCO Declaration on Cultural Diversity, which affirms the universal and interdependent nature of cultural rights and guides states in their implementation (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 2001).

To Maillo (2021, p. 21), the 1972 Convention on the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage introduced the notion of “outstanding universal value”, an expression that quickly got consolidated at the international stage and gave cultural and natural heritage the highest level in a valuation hierarchy. The effectiveness of this concept in relation to the fundamental purpose of preservation, as noted, is widely recognized. At the same time, the attribution of this evaluative status decisively guided national cultural policies, directing them to cultural and natural heritage and promoting a degree of social adherence.

Schreinmoser (2024) argues that Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage maintain a relationship of deep interdependence, constituting complementary expressions of human creativity. In many cases, the manifestations of intangible heritage end up materializing in some kind of concrete support, while material goods only become culturally relevant when they receive meanings, values and ideals, considered to be of an intangible nature. From this perspective, both can be understood as “two sides of the same coin”, since they presuppose and complement each other. The author further argues that the idea that “all cultural heritage is intangible” is quite convincing, noting that the reverse is not true, that is, not every immaterial expression constitutes cultural heritage. Thus, such goods are not protected by their physical or formal existence, but “by what they represent”. The core of cultural heritage, therefore, does not reside properly in the objects or practices themselves, but in the “intangible values and meanings behind them”, as well as in the social and cultural processes responsible for producing and updating those meanings (Schreinmoser 2024, pp. 42–43).

The formal recognition of ICH occurs through institutional processes that involve identification, documentation, and public recognition of cultural practices considered relevant to the identity of certain social groups. Because it involves the preservation of values associated with dynamic aspects of community life, this process requires formal registration, as well as the implementation of safeguard measures that ensure its continuity over time.

Especially since the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of 2003, UNESCO has played a central role in this process at the international level. State Parties are responsible for identifying and inventorying the cultural heritage in their territories and may subsequently submit them to international appreciation. Inscription on lists such as the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity depends on the preparation of a technical dossier that demonstrates the cultural relevance of the heritage, the participation of the communities involved and the existence of safeguard measures.

It is up to the countries themselves to structure recognition mechanisms. In Brazil, this attribution is performed by the Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional, based on Decree No. 3551 of 2000 (Brasil 2000). The instrument adopted is the registration in specific books, which classify the heritage according to their nature, such as knowledge, achievements, forms of expression and places. The process involves technical studies, consultation with the holding communities and an administrative decision that formalizes the recognition.

3.2. Aspirations and Limits in the Face of an International Harmonization Project

Traditionally referred to as a consolidated legal field and often presented as a supporting vector for the economic development of nations, IP is a multifaceted domain, both in relation to the legal assets it involves and the scope and forms of its protection.

Its dogmatic conformation ranges from patrimonial and competitive interests to very personal, cultural and collective dimensions. Works of authorship, patents, trademarks and others operate with different foundations, purposes and limits, although to a certain extent congruent with regard to the domain of the “immaterial”.

Although this word has become notable in the context of IP, especially to designate the “creations of the spirit”, Flusser (2017) warns that its use is conceptually inappropriate as a simple opposition to the materiality of the world. For the philosopher, there is no cultural, informational or symbolic production that exists on the margins of concrete support, devices and technical mediations. Even what is conventionally called “immaterial” depends on inscriptions, codes, apparatuses and infrastructures that give it form, circulation and intelligibility in common.

What can be called “sense”, understood for the purposes of this study as a word that semantically encompasses both “meaning” and “value”, does not consist of something fully and indelibly inscribed in the materiality of physical objects, even if their material attributes participate, to a greater or lesser extent, in the production of meaning. Nor can sense be conceived as something fully inscribed in individual subjectivity. It is in the dynamics of socio-communicative relations that sense is constituted and maintained, even if for a certain time, which presupposes relative stability of the multiple aspects that participate in its production in a complex way. Furthermore, complexity is understood here as the dynamic and non-linear interrelation of heterogeneous elements that constitute certain scenarios, which interpenetrate at multiple levels or layers of organization, marked by relations of interdependence, feedback and recursion (Morin 2011).

For every human creation, different meanings occur and concur that interpenetrate the field of IP rights. It follows that legal protection in this domain is not presented in a homogeneous way, varying according to the expectations at stake, such as exclusivity, the economic and symbolic valuation of intellectual work, as well as access to culture, information and knowledge, also in relation to the attributes of the objects involved. Such dynamics, at the same time, presuppose and affect the cultural, economic and legal scenarios to which these creations are inserted, influencing and being influenced by them.

This complex and multifaceted configuration highlights the need to understand IP as a domain crossed by structural tensions in which different interests and rationalities dispute primacy. In terms of harmonization, such tensions hardly escape the subjugation of certain expectations by others that are closer to the centers of economic, institutional or technological power in force.

The movement toward the strengthening of IP rights, especially since the second half of the 20th century, has sought to align patrimonial and moral interests arising from authors’ aspirations and to qualify intellectual activity in the arts and sciences as a fundamental right. At the same time, market aspirations driven by competition and commercial rationales found, in industrial property and business law, a set of supporting, yet functionally decisive, guidelines for protecting competitive edge, arranging markets, and assigning economic value to intangible assets.

This normative and discursive reality seems to have been guided by the objective of institutionally strengthening IP, expanding its reach, its legitimacy and its capacity to adapt to different social, economic and technological fields, with the grounding of a multilateral normative system aimed at harmonizing protections and promoting the circulation of intangible assets. In this sense, the United Nations stands out through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, whose article 27 enshrines the protection of moral and material interests arising from intellectual production; the World Intellectual Property Organization, within the scope of (International Union for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works 1971) revised in 1971, which establishes minimum parameters for copyright protection and consolidates the principle of national treatment; as well as the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, signed in the context of the (World Trade Organization 1994), which introduces enforcement mechanisms and links the protection of IP to the dynamics of international trade. In addition to these instruments, the (Paris Union 1883), which structures the international protection of patents, trademarks and industrial designs, and the (World Intellectual Property Organization 1996), which updates the copyright discipline in the face of the challenges imposed by digital technologies, deserve mention. Together, these diplomas reveal a trajectory of normative densification that confirms their growing imbrication with global economic agendas, technological innovation, and informational flows.

As a side effect of this process, however, there are displacements of meaning, argumentative overlaps and conceptual interpolations that are not always coherent, resulting from the juxtaposition of heterogeneous foundations, such as the protection of dignity, creativity and culture, on the one hand, and the logic of exclusivity, artificial scarcity and competition, on the other, which contributes to internal and external tensions within the institute and to ambiguities as to its limits, purposes and legal foundations.

Ascensão (2002) already formulated decisive questions about what can be called, in the terms adopted here, a totalizing view of IP, characterized by the tendency of the continuous and unreflective expansion of exclusive rights. For the author, the absolutization of the intellectual exclusive operates as an ideological displacement that obscures its exceptional and instrumental nature, converting it into an end in itself and distancing it from its social, cultural and communicational functions. Such a process, according to Ascensão, compromises freedom, access to knowledge and the circulation of ideas.

From this critical perspective, IP, presented as a unitary and coherent system, in reality results from the historical juxtaposition of diverse norms and legal regimes, guided by sometimes conflicting rationalities. It is precisely at this point that Morin’s (2011) reflections contribute to the deepening of the analysis by allowing us to understand that the one-dimensional reading of IP reduces its complexity to the economic–exclusivist vector, to the detriment of its multiple dimensions: ethical, cultural, communicational and political.

For Morin (2011), unidimensionality is not reduced to a methodological simplification. It is a true pathology of thought, produced by a paradigm of disjunction, reduction and abstraction that fragments the real, isolates phenomena from their contexts and neutralizes the constitutive tensions between order and disorder, unity and multiplicity, subject and object. By pretending to master complexity through linear categories and univocal causalities, one-dimensional thinking impoverishes the understanding of reality. In this sense, unidimensionality operates as a mutilating rationality: by separating what is inseparable, it transforms analytical distinctions into ontological isolations, converting conceptual instruments into dogmas and methods into closed doctrines.

The consequences of this rationality are particularly serious when projected onto human, social, and institutional phenomena. As Morin (2011) warns, mutilating thinking inevitably leads to mutilating actions: Manichean policies, rigid institutions, and normative models insensitive to feedback and emergencies, incapable of perceiving that all rational intervention in the social world occurs in a field of non-linear interdependencies.

Overcoming one-dimensionality, therefore, does not mean abandoning rationality, but bringing it back to a more complex, dialogical and self-critical level. Pensée complexe does not eliminate simplicity but re-inscribes it in a broader constellation of relations, refusing its reductive and univocal consequences.

From this epistemic key, it becomes possible to identify that the contemporary consolidation of IP often operates through the simplification of structural antagonisms, neutralizing tensions between freedom and exclusivity, between creation and market, or between social function and private appropriation. Such simplification, instead of theoretically strengthening the institute, tends to weaken it, as it hinders the formulation of clear normative limits and the construction of adequate legal responses to the technological and informational transformations of contemporary society.

4. Discussion

The “patrimonialization” of intangible culture reveals a double paradox, when analyzed from a strictly protocol and registry perspective. This is because, when considering ICH as “living culture”, it is observed that (a) its “preservation” presupposes much more the reiteration of shared practices than formal registration procedures promoted by instances external to the communities themselves, and (b) the very concept of “preservation” of what is “alive” necessarily implies the possibility of changes, since no living system remains untransformed (Morin 2013).

ICH, when recognized as living culture, is not preserved primarily through formal records, inventories or institutional protocols, but through the social continuity of practices, that is, through its daily reproduction, situated and shared within the communities themselves. In this sense, the external registration procedures are auxiliary instruments and not the effective core of the safeguard.

Unlike material heritage, whose conservation can be thought of in terms of physical stability, ICH is only maintained as long as it can be transformed, adapted and resignified over time. The attempt to “fix” it through rigid definitions or normative models can, paradoxically, compromise its vitality, crystallizing practices that are, by nature, dynamic.

As already mentioned, ICH has as one of its purposes the guarantee of cultural diversity, acting as a force of resistance to the dynamics of behavioral and symbolic standardization that accompanies the globalization process. However, the formal recognition of ICH, although a quite relevant factor in itself, is not sufficient to effectively promote intercultural dialog or to ensure respect for the different ways of living in the globalized context.

This recognition operates on a symbolic/institutional level, which presupposes, in turn, solid institutions in terms of social recognition. It can confer visibility, legitimacy, and normative safeguard to cultural practices, but it does not automatically guarantee their understanding, social appreciation, or intergenerational transmission. Without continuous public policies, educational actions, spaces for cultural mediation and effective participation of the communities that hold these heritages, ICH runs the risk of being reduced to a pro forma label, subject to weakening and alienated mercantile instrumentalization.

In addition, intercultural dialog presupposes horizontal relations, openness to conflict, recognition of otherness, and willingness to listen to each other, elements that are not produced only by acts of State or international recognition. In contexts marked by power asymmetries, market logics, and hegemonic cultural patterns, even a formally instituted ICH can coexist with practices of exclusion, silencing, or emptying of meanings.

For ICH to fulfill its potential as a force of resistance to cultural standardization, formal recognition must be articulated with broader pedagogical, communicational, and institutional strategies capable of integrating heritage into living social dynamics, strengthening the autonomy of communities, and promoting effective education for cultural diversity.

In turn, the harmonization of IP can be understood as a normative project that seeks to reduce the heterogeneity of national legal systems through the universalization of categories and standards of protection. At the international level, this movement is consolidated through multilateral treaties and institutional initiatives that associate normative convergence with legal predictability, security of transactions, and global economic integration (Straus 2023). This rationality presupposes the possibility of abstracting local cultural and institutional specificities in favor of generalizable legal models, capable of operating in a relatively uniform way in different national contexts.

The creativity and culture of peoples and their traditions is reinforced by legitimacies sculpted by the law, marking interests and predictability. Even formal intentions of harmonization cannot empty the personhood of creative originations of context. Thus, more than a legislative technique, harmonization is an expression of a certain legal universalism, in which IP assumes the function of a common normative language in the trade and global circulation of intangible goods.

The tensions between the harmonization of IP and the protection of ICH emerge, above all, from the confrontation between normative rationalities, thought and applied in a unidimensional way. In this order, while the harmonization of IP operates from universalizing legal categories aimed at standardization and predictability, the protection of ICH presupposes the coexistence of multiple forms of cultural production, deeply situated in specific historical and community contexts.

Projected in these terms, this divergence does not necessarily translate into immediate empirical conflicts but reveals conceptual incompatibilities regarding the understanding of authorship, value, temporality and function of law. From this perspective, harmonization, when taken as a universal paradigm, finds structural limits in the face of cultural plurality recognized by the law itself, showing that global normative integration does not eliminate, but reorganizes, the tensions between legal uniformity and cultural diversity.

Any attempt at universalization that attempts to take advantage of the harmonization of IP configures what Morin calls a “pathology of thought”. By isolating cultural creation from its communitarian context to transform it into an asset subject to standardization, law operates a simplification process that fragments the real and neutralizes the tensions between unity and multiplicity. This mutilating rationality, by separating what is inseparable, being living cultural practice, its legal expression, and economic dynamics, ends up producing normative models that are insensitive to diversity. Therefore, overcoming unidimensionality in the treatment of the relationship between IP and ICH requires that the legal system recognizes that global integration should not occur by the elimination of differences but by a complex and dialogical rationality that accepts plurality as a constituent element and not as an obstacle to legal certainty.

As already mentioned, ICH, to a certain extent, depends on materiality, whether in its static condition recognized in artifacts or dynamic condition involving life activities. There is not, in the realm of social, economic or evaluative life, any good or practice that exists in a way that is absolutely unrelated to a material dimension. Even what is classified as immaterial, as is the case of knowledge and symbolic expressions, depends on material supports, technical means and concrete conditions of existence.

Theories that attribute full ontological autonomy to the “intangible” incur in an oversimplification of reality. Immateriality does not eliminate materiality; on the contrary, it is articulated with it. The classification as an intangible good results, to a large extent, from an analytical option derived from a reductive binary logic that forces the exclusion of one dimension when the other is privileged. If something is qualified as immaterial, it is mistakenly assumed that it cannot be material, and vice versa.

This reasoning is often manifested in the debate on knowledge. It is stated, for example, that knowledge is immaterial and therefore not susceptible to exclusive appropriation. The argument is based on the idea that because it does not have physical materiality, knowledge could be shared indefinitely without loss or scarcity. However, this reading ignores the fact that the very act of sharing knowledge presupposes material conditions: language, body, technique, means of communication and infrastructure.

Language offers an illustrative example. Words are not material goods in the strict sense, but their enunciation depends on phonatory devices, recording technologies and technical means of dissemination. Everyone can pronounce a word because everyone has, to a greater or lesser degree, these material means. Preventing someone from using a word or expression would be not only arbitrary but incompatible with democratic values, bordering on censorship practices. However, in sustaining the freedom of use of the word, the argument inevitably resorts to the materiality that makes its circulation possible.

This paradox reveals the limit of approaches that rigidly oppose material and immaterial. In defending the absence of restrictions on intangible assets, one paradoxically resorts to materiality as the basis of the argument. Immateriality, in this context, is not sustained autonomously.

By taking only the good as a reference, be it a text, an intellectual work or a symbolic creation, there is a risk of making human work that gave rise to it invisibly. If words belong to everyone, it might seem incoherent to say that a text is “someone’s”. However, the protected legal good is not only the final result but also, and above all, the intellectual, creative and organizational work employed in its production.

Ignoring this dimension is equivalent to treating cultural and intellectual goods as if they were simply available in the world, dissociated from productive processes, human efforts and social contexts. Such an approach reduces the complexity of the economy to a purely distributive logic, disregarding the value of human labor.

Several countries inserted in the tradition of liberal democracies, especially under the influence of social constitutionalism, recognize free enterprise and the valorization of human work as structuring foundations of the economic order, an orientation also adopted by Brazil, as provided in article 170 of the 1988 Constitution (Brasil 1988). Although one can criticize, from certain perspectives, the disciplinary centrality of work as a possible instrument of social domination, it cannot be ignored that it remains a structuring element of subsistence and economic organization.

The valorization of human work, in this sense, is not limited to a mercantile logic but is part of a broader normative architecture, which dialogs with fundamental rights and the dignity of the human person. In this sense, both the institutes that are part of the scope of IP and ICH play an important role in valuing human work. Harmonization between IP and ICH must take into account the cultural, social, and economic diversity that crosses the points of intersection between these regimes, and the pensée complexe can contribute to this task.

At the international level, this framework involves the necessary complementary articulation between organizations with different approaches. UNESCO is guided in its action by the logic of safeguarding, a paradigm consolidated in the (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 2003), which privileges public policies, symbolic recognition and appreciation of the communities that hold these cultural assets.

On the other hand, the World Intellectual Property Organization seeks to develop legal instruments capable of curbing the misappropriation of traditional knowledge and cultural expressions by third parties, especially in contexts of economic exploitation. The work made by the Intergovernmental Committee of the World Intellectual Property Organization on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore—IGC (World Intellectual Property Organization 2023), often associated with the GRATK (Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Traditional Cultural Expressions) (World Intellectual Property Organization 2024) negotiations, has gained prominence.

The discussions developed within the committee focus on the creation of legal mechanisms that ensure greater control by detaining communities over the use of their knowledge and cultural expressions, as well as on the prevention of their misappropriation. Of particular note is the requirement to disclose the origin of genetic resources in patent applications, the recognition of forms of collective ownership, and the provision of prior informed consent, associated with fair and equitable sharing of benefits.

This articulation evidences efforts to transform the paradigm of IP, tensioned by the need to accommodate different forms of production and transmission of knowledge, although the theme still raises much debate and actions for its implementation.

5. Conclusions

This investigation briefly reveals that the conflict between the international convergence of IP and the protection of ICH configures a deep ontological and conceptual tension. The IP harmonization project, driven by a logic that seeks universality and the establishment of standards to ensure predictability for transnational economic agents, runs the risk of having a restrictive impact on the collective and territorially situated dynamics that constitute ICH. This conjuncture shows that the search for global legal certainty can, paradoxically, weaken the foundations for safeguarding cultural diversity by imposing categories of exclusivity on goods of a common nature.

The application of Morin’s thought on pensée complexe allows us to consider that this tension stems from a one-dimensional and reductive view of the relationship between IP and ICH. When the economic–exclusivist vector and the logic of artificial scarcity are privileged, the project of international harmonization operates through a “paradigm of disjunction” that isolates the legal phenomenon from its living cultural context. Added to this is the aspect that the recording expedients that seek “fix” practices related to ICH can, paradoxically, crystallize and compromise the vitality of manifestations that are, by nature, changeable.

Facing the tension between these normative regimes requires overcoming what Morin calls “mutilating rationality”, projecting the harmonization of IP from a complex and dialogical perspective. Such an approach makes it possible to strengthen cultural diversity by integrating it into the industrial and mercantile ecosystems as an intra- and inter-constitutive value dimension of these systems and not as an external obstacle to totalizing economic willings.