As an introduction to the inaugural issue of the new WIPO Journal, this essay highlights some of the key recent developments in the intellectual property field. The essay begins by discussing the increasingly complex, and at times incoherent, international legal order governing the protection...

The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, which established the minimum standards for the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights for WTO members, remains one of the more controversial international intellectual property agreements that have...

Since the early 2000s, the European Union and the United States have pushed aggressively for the development of bilateral, plurilateral and regional trade agreements. Termed economic partnership agreements (EPAs) and free trade agreements (FTAs) by the European Union and FTAs by the United...

About three decades ago, the TRIPS Agreement arrived with the establishment of the World Trade Organization. This agreement transformed the international intellectual property regime by marrying intellectual property with trade. Despite having its standards drawn mostly from the Global North,...

Written in celebration of Pedro Roffe's life and achievements, this chapter captures the many valuable contributions he has made in his three decades at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and a decade and a half at the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable...

The fourth issue of the series jointly published by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development and the Center for International Intellectual Property Studies explores the impact of plurilateralism on intellectual property law. The chapters making up this volume review...

The 2016-2017 biennium marks the historical milestones of several major pro-development initiatives relating to intellectual property law and policy. These important milestones include the Intellectual Property Conference of Stockholm in 1967, the adoption of the Declaration on the Right to...

In December 2015, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This agenda sought to achieve development for the next fifteen years and featured seventeen sustainable development goals (SDGs). Focusing on issues lying at the intersection of intellectual property...

Multinational intellectual property dispute settlement is fraught with challenges. While most right holders have relied on domestic litigation in countries in which they invest or conduct business – or host states in investment lingo – the arrival of new international trade, investment and...

This chapter closely examines the negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Asian countries' recent efforts to set regional intellectual property norms. The RCEP negotiations are particularly important to Asian intellectual property developments because the...