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Deere-Birkbeck, Carolyn --- "Developing Countries in the Global IP System Before TRIPS: The Political Context for the TRIPS Negotiations" [2010] ELECD 443; in Correa, M. Carlos (ed), "Research Handbook on the Protection of Intellectual Property under WTO Rules" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Protection of Intellectual Property under WTO Rules

Editor(s): Correa, M. Carlos

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847209047

Section: Chapter 2

Section Title: Developing Countries in the Global IP System Before TRIPS: The Political Context for the TRIPS Negotiations

Author(s): Deere-Birkbeck, Carolyn

Number of pages: 30

Extract:

2 Developing countries in the global
IP system before TRIPS: the political
context for the TRIPS negotiations
Carolyn Deere-Birkbeck


The history of the global intellectual property (IP) system set the political
backdrop for developing country responses to the TRIPS (Trade-related
Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) negotiations and the Agreement
they produced. This chapter reviews the origins of the political stand-off
between developed and developing countries during the TRIPS nego-
tiations. It traces developing country participation in the international IP
system through three phases: the colonial era, the post-colonial era, and
then the lead-up to TRIPS negotiations during the Uruguay Round. The
chapter concludes with a synopsis of how these historical tensions influ-
enced the politics of the TRIPS negotiations, the Agreement that emerged,
and the implementation process (see Chapter 1 by Charles Clift for a fuller
analysis of the TRIPS negotiation process).

1. The colonial era: variation and external control
In most developing countries, Western conceptions of privately held rights
over intellectual assets have no local cultural or legal roots.1 For many
countries, pre-colonial commercial legal arrangements with European
powers marked their first encounter with Western practices related to IP.2
Subsequently, formal IP laws in developing countries emerged largely
from colonial administration.3 The trajectory of IP laws was, however,
not uniform across the developing world. Most notably, the experience
of a number of countries in the Americas was distinct from that of many
countries in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific.
In ...