Development of legislation to protect traditional knowledge requires a two-fold approach: it must prevent unapproved use of traditional knowledge, but it must also prevent undesired erosion of knowledge. Traditional knowledge and development systems are dynamic in nature and cannot be treated as static. Therefore, protection of traditional knowledge requires the development of mechanisms which enhance the ongoing utilization of knowledge. Rights over traditional knowledge are ancestral and are vested in the custodians of such knowledge ab initio, without the need for any act of government. Furthermore, traditional knowledge is part of cultural patrimony, and indigenous peoples must be the final arbiters of what any legislation to protect their interests should look like. To impose any legislative proposal upon them without their consent would be conducive to what has been called the final colonization – colonization of the product of their intellectual effort. If adopted as currently drafted the proposed Peruvian regime may, in fact, prove counterproductive, and promote division amongst indigenous peoples, legitimize the historic appropriation of traditional knowledge, and perpetuate legal uncertainty. However, the proposal has advanced efforts to develop sui generis legislation, and existing weaknesses in the proposal are not insurmountable, subject to firm political will to commit to review the existing proposal and alternatives in accordance with indigenous peoples’ expressed desires. This paper concludes: - The role of States in the development of sui generis legislation must be that of facilitator and not arbiter of rights. Therefore, any sui generis regime must be developed in close cooperation with, and reflect the aspirations, interests and rights of, indigenous peoples. O Access to and use of traditional knowledge should conform with the customary law of the holders of traditional knowledge. O Any process for development of a regime to protect traditional knowledge must be guided by international human rights law, including soft law. - The scope of any regime should include traditional knowledge within the public domain, unless shown that it was the intention of indigenous peoples to place it beyond their control. - Any functional regime will require regulatory frameworks in both provider/source and user/recipient countries coupled with international enforcement procedures to ensure realization of the CBD’s objectives. The most important developments for protection of traditional knowledge and innovation systems, from indigenous peoples standpoint, would appear to relate to the consolidation of title to land and resource management rights, as well as adoption of culturally sensitive education and health programmes. Designing sui generis regimes requires innovative proposals and a healthy disregard for existing legal tradition, especially where such tradition has fostered the historic expropriation of indigenous property. To this end drafters of legislative, administrative and policy measures to secure recognition and protection of traditional knowledge should not feel constrained to maintain their proposals within the framework of nonindigenous legal principles. But they should be prepared, where necessary, to commence with a blank sheet and seek to identify what is required to meet indigenous peoples’ legitimate claims, and then what means might be utilized to achieve them drawing upon all possible sources of legislative innovation, and customary law and practice.