Common Contracts
1 similar Trips Agreement contracts
Complying with Unwelcome Rules? Developing Countries and the TRIPs AgreementTrips Agreement • September 10th, 2015
The Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) Agreement, concluded as part of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations, is a particularly ambitious international agreement in that aims to set a common floor for intellectual property protection in all World Trade Organization (WTO) members. Leading developing country governments vigorously resisted the conclusion of the agreement for philosophical and economic reasons, but under heavy pressure from developed country governments eventually accepted it. Despite their objections, almost all developing country governments have taken steps to comply with the TRIPS Agreement, many have done so before they were required to and many adopted more rigorous IPR rules than strictly required by TRIPs. This article seeks to explain this puzzle by testing explanations compliance derived from realism, which emphasizes the importance of great power coercion; neo-liberalism, which stresses coercion, but also the costs associated with
