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"Foreword" [2015] ELECD 290; in Geiger, Christophe (ed), "Research Handbook on Human Rights and Intellectual Property" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015) xii

Book Title: Research Handbook on Human Rights and Intellectual Property

Editor(s): Geiger, Christophe

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781783472413

Section Title: Foreword

Number of pages: 3

Extract:

Foreword
Catherine Trautmann



At times when social and technological changes occur at a pace unseen before,
complex social relationships entail the adoption of increasingly convoluted rules for
their regulation, often exceeding our capacity to understand all the consequences for
human rights.
Today's growing variety of forms of creative expressions, complicated innovation
processes, and mechanisms for the remuneration of creators and investors call for a
comprehensive normative framework. Often it is not easy to see how specific
intellectual property norms interact with provisions of human rights instruments that
are usually drafted in broader language. The key issue is how to respect human rights
in a constantly changing environment, while fostering creativity and innovation as well
as the dissemination of its results through the system of intellectual property rights.
Intuitively, one might say that on many levels there is no link between human rights
and intellectual property. The way the two bodies of law developed is interesting. The
economic applications of intellectual property on the one hand, and the search for
justice through human rights on the other: apparently two rather different worlds which,
however, are the subject of a common Article 27 in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. The first paragraph states that `everyone has the right freely to
participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in
scientific advancement and its benefits'. It concerns the individual's right to benefit
from culture or science while the second paragraph, which emphasises that ` ...