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Gervais, Daniel J. --- "The TRIPS Agreement and the Changing Landscape of International Intellectual Property" [2007] ELECD 199; in Torremans, Paul; Shan, Hailing; Erauw, Johan (eds), "Intellectual Property and TRIPS Compliance in China" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: Intellectual Property and TRIPS Compliance in China

Editor(s): Torremans, Paul; Shan, Hailing; Erauw, Johan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845428754

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: The TRIPS Agreement and the Changing Landscape of International Intellectual Property

Author(s): Gervais, Daniel J.

Number of pages: 20

Extract:

3. The TRIPS Agreement and the
changing landscape of international
intellectual property
Daniel J. Gervais*

INTRODUCTION
The focus of this essay will be the economic, social and cultural forces at play in
international intellectual property. Economics will provide us with the most
useful set of analytical tools. The reason is self-evident. When US and other
Western lobbies successfully arranged the marriage of IP and trade rules, it
became inevitable that IP rules would be measured using an economic yardstick.
After all, trade liberalization is not an end in itself. Rather, it is a means to an end,
namely the promotion of economic growth. While they may interface with those
rights and standards, trade rules do not protect either environmental or labour
standards, nor do they protect human rights as part of their core mission. Thus,
by setting the IP table in the house of trade, the cloak of IP as a simple variation
on the classic theme of property1 or even as a human right ­ notions essentially
developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ­ was bound to fall.
The linkage between IP and trade also points to a different method of
making policy analysis and recommendations. The raw public choice
approach may not be ideal. If one concedes that making a proper policy analy-
sis is impossible or inherently unreliable because theoretical models are inad-
equate or valid empirical data are unavailable, then perhaps that is the best
way to proceed. I am not yet prepared to throw in ...