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Currently browsing posts by Erin P. Cassidy
Power, Politics, and the Adoption of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS)
Intellectual Property Watch (IP Watch) recently reported that discussions of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) broke down due to disagreement between developed and developing countries.[i] This is but a current example of the ongoing conflict between developed and developing countries over international patent law. The recent origins of this conflict stem from adoption of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994. Under TRIPs, the approximately 150 member states of the WTO committed to adopt, inter alia, global minimum standards for intellectual property (IP) laws.
TRIPS has been controversial from the start. Developing countries and advocates for the ‘intellectual commons’ are of the view that TRIPS jeopardizes developing country access to knowledge and essential medicines that are critical to their well-being and growth.[ii] In contrast, some developed countries, in particular the US, are of the view that TRIPS did not go far or fast enough in establishing a global IP regime: the US is pushing developing countries to accept standards that go further than TRIPS in the bilateral and regional free trade agreements that have flourished as WTO negotiations have stalled.[iii]
The developing countries have legitimate concerns. They are net technology importers and must thus establish and maintain IP systems which will be of little benefit to them in the short term, while reducing their…
Stepping Back from Trade Protectionism: the Time is Right
International trade law is often considered one of the more successful areas of international law since it benefits from robust enforcement and dispute mechanisms. However, international trade law faces its own challenges, and a new one may be imminent: the elimination of protectionist sentiment and measures that governments around the world have adopted in response to the global financial crisis. Governments, particularly the G20[1], have acknowledged the issue of rising protectionism.[2] However, in light of several reports examining the measures adopted by G20 governments, the G20 leaders’ commitments following their most recent meeting in September demonstrate that they are not moving fast enough, or far enough, to reign in protectionist tendencies.
As we are all well aware, the international credit crisis, which came to the fore in 2008, resulted in the collapse or near-collapse of financial institutions and sources of credit for businesses around the world – causing trade levels, investment and global output to plummet, and thousands of jobs to disappear. In the fall of 2008, there were fears that a depression similar in intensity to the Great Depression of the 1930s was looming. In response, many states announced significant injections of capital into troubled financial institutions and industrial sectors to avoid their collapse, and to facilitate access to credit by industry. They also adopted measures to stimulate domestic demand.
Global leaders, particularly those representing the G20 group of countries, also moved to…
