ICTSD Resource
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE FOR THE FORMULATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY POLICY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND TRANSITION ECONOMIES. By Tom Pengelly. International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), June 2005. This issue paper provides an overview of current policies and issues relating to technical assistance for the development of national intellectual property infrastructure, legal and policy frameworks and associated human resources. The paper discusses the need for intellectual property technical assistance, and overviews the main types of such activities and services. It review donor organizations and providers including the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), the US, the EU, the European Patent Office and IP Australia, and discusses the strategic issues relating to the improvement of such technical assistance in the context of developing and transition economies. Available online at http://www.iprsonline.org/unctadictsd/docs/Pengelly_TA_FINAL.pdf.
Other Resources
"Values and interests in attitudes toward trade and globalization: the continuing compromise of embedded liberalism" by Robert Wolfe and Matthew Mendelsohn in the CANADIAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE 38 (3), 2005. This article asserts that many analyses of public opinion about global integration, and by implication global governance, are based on the material factors or interests driving individual and collective political preferences. In contrast, the authors argue that values and ideology offer a better explanation of attitudes toward trade liberalisation than do economic interests, and that the material self-interest factors that do influence opinion about trade are not relevant for opinion about globalisation. The authors use regression analysis of original Canadian public opinion data to show that individuals of whatever skill or educational level who trust multinational corporations and the market, who like the US, who support more immigration, who oppose a larger welfare state, and who support Canada taking a more active role in the world are more likely to support globalisation. The article concludes that Canadians’ continued support of free trade agreements but wariness about globalisation indicates that the compromise of embedded liberalism, a compelling metaphor about the foundation of twentieth century international organization, continues to shape their understanding of the world.
"See you in Geneva? Legal (mis)representations of the trading system" by Robert Wolfe in the EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 11 (3), 2005. This paper notes that when officials from different countries disagree about trade policy, some say ’see you in Geneva!’ meaning ’see you in court!’ In offering a pluralist alternative to this centralism of analysts and practitioners, the author represents the WTO not as a coercive court used for enforcement but as a site for the elaboration of a system of ‘law’ that arises from and provides a framework for self-directed human interaction. Trade law is shaped in the shadow of bargaining. Wolfe contrasts this legal representation with ‘legalisation’ to show the contribution it makes to constructivist international theory. An empirical probe of the contentious domain of the WTO Agreement on Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary Measures (SPS) asks about the relative importance of the few formal SPS ‘disputes’ compared with other ways that WTO law affects global food safety. A discussion of how the trading system responded to ‘mad cow disease’ (BSE) provides confirmation of pluralist insights. Far from being only in Geneva, the author contends that trade law is everywhere.
OECD TRADE POLICY WORKING PAPER NO. 20 - TRADE PREFERENCE EROSION: EXPANDED ASSESSMENT OF COUNTRIES AT RISK OF WELFARE LOSSES. By the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 18 August 2005. This paper presents additional findings from the on-going work of the OECD project on trade preference erosion. The purpose was to assess in more detail the situation of those preference-reliant countries seen as being most at risk of experiencing negative welfare effects from preference erosion as a consequence of multilateral tariff liberalisation (building on a previous paper by Lippoldt and Kowalski, 2005). Based on a selection criterion, 7 developing countries were chosen for inclusion in the present study: Bangladesh, Madagascar, Morocco, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. For three of the seven developing countries, welfare losses primarily associated with the EU-15 tariff liberalisation are estimated to be more than fully offset by greater gains arising from improved market access in other sectors and markets. Available online at http://webdomino1.oecd.org/olis/2005doc.nsf/Linkto/td-tc-wp(2005)13-final.