Course Developed by Dr. Sambit Mallick
The TRIPS Negotiations and the World Trade Organisation
The origins of the negotiation of an agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) can be traced back to a number of factors, which international policy-making from the 1970s to the mid-1980s. There were attempts, following decolonisation and the establishment of WIPO, to further amend the Paris Convention. Calls for the revision of the Paris Convention increased in the late 1970s when an increase in the unauthorised sale of protected products led the business sector to take the lead in encouraging governments to strengthen protection against what they saw as counterfeiting. Attempts at revising the Paris Convention and the Berne Convention within the context of the WIPO failed because the positions of developed and developing countries were too far apart. On the one hand, governments of developed countries were dismayed at the absence of detailed rules on enforcement at the national level and at the absence of a binding dispute settlement system between states. On the other hand, developing countries were seeking to obtain concessions on the basis of a 1974 UNCTAD report, which was largely critical of the role of the IPR system in the promotion of development in developing countries1 . The result was a series of inconclusive meetings in the context of WIPO.
The launch of the Uruguay Round of Trade Negotiations in 1994 in the context of the GATT led to new initiatives by countries and actors seeking the strengthening of IPR frameworks. There was significant pressure from corporate lobbies in the US, but the progression of the idea of inserting an IPR agenda in the round of trade negotiations also owed to the fact that there was a broad congruence of interests among big businesses in many countries around the world 2.
Notes and References
1 See UNCTAD, ‘The role of the patents system in the transfer of technology to developing countries, UN Doc TD/B/AC 11/19 (1974).
2 See, for example, Duncan Matthews 2002..