Analysis of the Role of South-South Cooperation to promote governance on intellectual property rights and development

The international regime on IP rights is currently made up of a patchwork of laws and institutions at the bilateral, regional, and multilateral levels with a growing number of players. The TRIPS Agreement of the WTO forms the core instrument with critical influence on the role of international actors and the scope of national policy making. TRIPS aim at reducing the North-South tension on IP rights protection through a multilateral system as one of its objectives. The WTO rules on dispute settlement also call for strengthening the multilateral system and ensuring the use of the Dispute Settlement Body to address disputes among WTO members. However, TRIPS becomes the basis for developed countries to demand higher protection of IP rights outside the multilateral system. Such use of TRIPS fundamentally undermines the objective of reducing tension and the contribution of the multilateral system in managing the political-economy of IP rights norm setting. The dispute settlement rules also do not prevent the developed countries from using unilateral trade review mechanism to require the protection of IP rights in developing countries based on standards other than those under TRIPS. Moreover, TRIPS has weak review mechanism to evaluate and address the socio-economic impact of the implementation of its provisions. The inability of the multilateral system to manage the political economy of IP rights norm-setting implies that the developed countries can pursue their interests on IP rights protection irrespective of the objectives and principles of TRIPS and the consequences for the multilateral system. The United Nations system has helped to advance the interests of the developing countries in certain areas of the protection of IP rights and technological development. However, policy coherence within the UN system itself remains critical. Recently the role of the UN on IP rights turned into a North-South debate, resulting in the disassociation of some of the developed countries from final decisions and treaties after important concessions have been made by developing countries. WIPO advances further the standards of protection of IP rights. Currently WIPO is unable to make progress with respect to the conclusion of treaties for further strengthening of IP protection supported by the developed countries. It also failed to make progress on initiatives to address the concerns of developing countries on the protection traditional knowledge and folklore. Normsetting, technical assistance and other activities of the WIPO would be influenced by the implementation of the WIPO Development Agenda. Increasingly WIPO would be forced to consider complex policy issues on the relationship between IP rights and development, the balance of competing interests, and an assessment of the impact of its activities. Almost all important treaties on the protection of IP rights are initiated by the developed countries. Developing countries have some success in influencing the direction of the global IP rights regime. They have secured important concessions that provides flexibilities in the implementation of international treaties. In addition, the developing countries, civil society organizations and the academia continue to push for fundamental rethinking of the present IP rights system in light of development challenges.? Their efforts include the WIPO Development Agenda, the WHO global framework and plan of action on R&D for diseases disproportionately affecting developing countries, protection of biological resources and traditional knowledge, and access to knowledge treaty. These efforts have to contend with the sharp contrast in the interests of developed and developing countries and governance issues that include;