Malbon, Justin; Lawson, Charles --- "Interpreting and Implementing the TRIPS Agreement" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008) [2008] ELECD 202

Editor(s): Malbon, Justin; Lawson, Charles

Title: Interpreting and Implementing the TRIPS Agreement

Sub-title: Is it Fair?

Topics: Development Economics; Law and Development; Intellectual Property Law

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Date of Publication: 30 June 2008

Number of pages: 200

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847201447

EISBN: 9781848442863

Abstract/Description:

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.