Rethinking intellectual property rights and trips

Martin Khor

pp. 201-213

in: Peter Drahos, Ruth Mayne (eds), Global intellectual property rights, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002

Abstract

The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) was established as part of the World Trade Organization (WTO) regime that came into operation on 1 January 1995. It established minimum standards for a set of intellectual property rights (IPRs) that WTO members have to institute through national legislation. Many developing countries had tried to resist the entrance of IPRs as a subject in the Uruguay Round, and then they tried to limit what they saw as the more damaging aspects of the proposals coming from developed countries. But at the end of the Round, the developed countries (and the companies and industries of the North that were the driving forces and lobbies behind the proposals and negotiations) succeeded in getting most of what they had hoped for on IPRs in TRIPS. TRIPS has been considered by some economics experts of developing countries as the WTO agreement that has the potential to cause the most damage to prospects for development.