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The Politics of Intellectual Property Rights and Access to MedicinesLinking IPRs to Trade: The Making of TRIPs

The Politics of Intellectual Property Rights and Access to Medicines: Linking IPRs to Trade: The... [When the GATT Uruguay Round was launched in 1986, its ambitious agenda included an item on IPRs that appeared almost as a footnote that some thought would not survive the end of the Round (Adede 2003). Seven years later, not only had the item survived, but it had resulted in an agreement, the TRIPs agreement, which eventually became one of the key pillars of the trade regime itself. What is most impressive about this turn of events is not so much the success of the regime actors pushing for IPRs in eventually securing an agreement, although this was no mean feat. The TRIPs agreement is, without doubt, the most important development in the governance of IPRs in the last 100 years or so, having set in motion a legally-binding ‘one-size-fits-all’ global IPRs regime which has visibly expanded and strengthened IP protection and enforcement across most of the world. But, rather more impressive was the success of these actors in launching a global IPRs regime that governs IPRs largely as a trade and competitiveness issue at the expense of much else. As we shall see, this new stage in the IPRs regime was brought about by these specific interests and was not based on any substantive analysis or discussion on how a global IPRs regime should balance the many interests and issue-areas affected by IPRs. Indeed, as TRIPs itself states, the primary purpose of enforcing IPRs is to promote free trade in goods and services that embody IP (Katzenberger and Kur 1996; May 2000; Anawalt 2003).] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

The Politics of Intellectual Property Rights and Access to MedicinesLinking IPRs to Trade: The Making of TRIPs

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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2011
ISBN
978-1-349-31386-0
Pages
38 –59
DOI
10.1057/9780230306158_3
Publisher site
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Abstract

[When the GATT Uruguay Round was launched in 1986, its ambitious agenda included an item on IPRs that appeared almost as a footnote that some thought would not survive the end of the Round (Adede 2003). Seven years later, not only had the item survived, but it had resulted in an agreement, the TRIPs agreement, which eventually became one of the key pillars of the trade regime itself. What is most impressive about this turn of events is not so much the success of the regime actors pushing for IPRs in eventually securing an agreement, although this was no mean feat. The TRIPs agreement is, without doubt, the most important development in the governance of IPRs in the last 100 years or so, having set in motion a legally-binding ‘one-size-fits-all’ global IPRs regime which has visibly expanded and strengthened IP protection and enforcement across most of the world. But, rather more impressive was the success of these actors in launching a global IPRs regime that governs IPRs largely as a trade and competitiveness issue at the expense of much else. As we shall see, this new stage in the IPRs regime was brought about by these specific interests and was not based on any substantive analysis or discussion on how a global IPRs regime should balance the many interests and issue-areas affected by IPRs. Indeed, as TRIPs itself states, the primary purpose of enforcing IPRs is to promote free trade in goods and services that embody IP (Katzenberger and Kur 1996; May 2000; Anawalt 2003).]

Published: Aug 29, 2015

Keywords: Uruguay Round; Compulsory License; Trade Regime; Business Actor; TRIPs Agreement

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