Interpreting and Implementing the TRIPS Agreement: Is it Fair?

This book considers whether the WTO agreement on 'Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights' (TRIPS) will become a vehicle for promoting greater international equity and engagement with the world economy or a tool for wealthy nations to extract excessive rents from poorer countries. Can TRIPS garner the necessary degree of legitimacy and public trust to deliver economic development? Can it become a key instrument for promoting international health and development? In response to these questions, the book proposes interpretive possibilities for the TRIPS' text along with implementation strategies to avoid the threat of its irrelevancy due, amongst other things, to free trade agreements containing TRIPS-plus terms.The book discusses the impact of TRIPS from various perspectives, including those of developing countries. It will be of interest to informed citizens, members of NGOs and students and academics concerned with the debate about the impact of TRIPS on access to medicines at affordable prices, the protection of traditional knowledge, and the alleged neo-colonial effect of net revenue outflows from developing nations to developed nations for copyright and patent royalties.

Table of Contents:
Contents: 1. Introduction 2. TRIPS as Competitive and Cooperative Interpretation Christopher Arup 3. Knowledge Diplomacy and the New Intellectual Property Fundamentalism Graham Dutfield 4. Last Chance? Multilateralism, TRIPS and Developing Countries Xu Yi-chong 5. Intellectual Property Protection after TRIPS: An Asian Experience Jakkrit Kuanpoth 6. The Development-Balance of the TRIPS Agreement and Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Ermias Tekeste Biadgleng 7. The Evolution of the CBD’s Development Agenda that may Influence the Interpretation and Development of TRIPS Charles Lawson and Jay Sanderson 8. TRIPS-plus Treaty Terms: Dealing with Coercion Justin Malbon Index

About the Author :
Edited by Justin Malbon, Monash University and Charles Lawson, Professor, Law Futures Centre, Griffith Law School, Griffith University, Australia

Review :
'The chapters in this volume provide insightful analysis and commentary on TRIPS and, importantly, the TRIPS Plus world that many countries operate in. . . This is a fine contribution to the growing literature of interdisciplinary analyses of the global IP regime. . . there is enough in here that makes the book worth acquiring and reading. Scholars of development more generally will find this book to be useful both for advancing their own understanding of the global IP regime and for integrating IP into broader development studies courses they teach.'