IPRIA Seminar Series
TRIPS at 15: A New Centre of Gravity? Reflections on the Evolution of the TRIPS Agreement
IPRIA in association with the Institute for International Law and the Humanities (IILAH) proudly present this free public seminar in Melbourne.
Presenter:
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Mr Tony Taubman Director of Intellectual Property, World Trade Organization (WTO), Geneva |
15 years into its life, TRIPS still provokes uncertainty about its proper place within the system of international law, and unease about its impact on domestic law and policy. For its critics, TRIPS was the first ‘trade and…’ agreement: it seemingly yoked ‘non-trade’ concerns and ‘behind the border’ domestic regulatory issues together with the regime of multilateral trade law: it was about creating barriers to trade, not removing them; and human rights lawyers saw it as countering a host of human rights norms. The debate over TRIPS as a ‘trade and…’ legal instrument has given way to a more widespread debate about ‘TRIPS and….’ human rights, food security, biodiversity, health and more recently climate change. While TRIPS ostensibly called for an approach to IP protection as leading to ‘social and economic welfare’, and enshrines a ‘balance’ between rights and obligations, it was seen as a constraint on good public policy rather than a contribution to it, and raised anxiety that it would give wealthy economies a means of extracting rent from developing countries, against the threat of punitive ‘sanctions’. This seminar reviews the expectations of TRIPS at its negotiation and inception, against two contemporary challenges: the challenge of coherence, or the ‘TRIPS and...’ debate, and the challenge of legitimacy: or, how to give effect to the public policy ‘should’ enshrined in the objective that TRIPS sets for IP protection.
Convenors:
Andrew Mitchell and Tania Voon, Melbourne Law School
Details:
MELBOURNE
Date: Friday 26 March 2010, 12:45pm - 2:00pm
Venue: Room 224, Level 2, Melbourne Law School, 185 Pelham Street, CARLTON (map)
SEMINAR CONTACT: Vesna Stefanovski, IILAH, Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne, VIC 3010
Telephone: (03) 8344 6589
Email: law-iilah@unimelb.edu.au