Anderman, Steve; Kariyawasam, Rohan --- "TRIPS and Bilateralism: Technology Transfer in a Development Perspective" [2006] ELECD 72; in Dine, Janet; Fagan, Andrew (eds), "Human Rights and Capitalism" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Human Rights and Capitalism

Editor(s): Dine, Janet; Fagan, Andrew

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845422684

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: TRIPS and Bilateralism: Technology Transfer in a Development Perspective

Author(s): Anderman, Steve; Kariyawasam, Rohan

Number of pages: 29

Extract:

7. TRIPS and bilateralism: Technology
transfer in a development perspective
Steve Anderman and Rohan Kariyawasam

1. INTRODUCTION
The global expansion of legal protection for intellectual property rights in the
Agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) within the
framework of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has been fuelled by a
desire of the larger privately owned corporations in the wealthier countries of
the world to ensure a profitable return for their Intellectual Property (IP)
protected assets particularly in developing countries without IP legislation.1
This process has been described as one, `whereby the wish lists of various
intellectual property lobby groups [have been] inscribed into public interna-
tional law.'2 There are undoubted conflicts `between the implementation of
the TRIPS Agreement and the realisation of economic, social and cultural
rights' particularly in relation to impediments to transfer of technology to
developing countries.3 While it is true that Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs)
are also viewed as human rights under the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights,4 there is a crucial difference between recognising human rights as a
foundational principle for the creation of IPRs by the state and the exercise of
IPRs by private parties which has detrimental effects on LDCs.5 The multilat-
eral extension of IPR protection regimes as minimum standards with its
negative effects upon the developing world is only part of the story of inhib-
ited technology transfer. The TRIPs Agreement has been accompanied by a
series of bilateral agreements including TRIPS-plus agreements,6 ...