The Global Governance of Trade, Environment and Sustainable Development
"Moving forward from Cancún, The Global Governance of Trade, Environment and Sustainable Development", Conference organised by Ecologic – Institute for International and European Environmental Policy
by Jean-Frédéric Morin (Centre international Unisfera)
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I will bridge this presentation with the session of this morning on investment. We all know the story of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. In December 1998, the OECD Member States decided, for various reasons, to halt the negotiations of the MAI. Hundreds of grassroots organizations that objected to the MAI saw this failure as a significant achievement. However, this victory was just an illusion because thousands of bilateral agreements, which contain the exact same provisions the MAI would have contained, were signed worldwide in the aftermath. Moreover, these bilateral treaties could now lead to a new multilateral agreement at the WTO.
Last September, the NGOs who once celebrated the failure of the MAI, celebrated the failure of Cancun. But this victory was, once again, just an illusion. Bilateralism could prove to be more harmful for developing countries than a bad agreement within the WTO.
In the intellectual property arena, bilateral treaties are no longer a potential threat, but are alrealdy a reality. Although the media still focus on multilateral organizations, such as the WTO and WIPO, and on international conference, such as Cancun, the borders of the international IP regime are now pushed back by the more effective mean of bilateral agreements. As one would expect, bilateralism shifts the balance of power in favour of developed countries and allows advances that would probably not be possible to achieve through multilateral negotiations at the WTO.
In the next few minutes I will present to you 5 key features of bilateral IP treaties:
• starting with their background,
• the treaties themselves,
• the countries involved,
• the negotiations strategies and their provisions.
• I will conclude with general remarks on bilateral agreements.
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