Zehn Jahre WTO: eine Standortbestimmung

Am 1. Januar 1995 begann die World Trade Organization WTO als Nachfolgerin des Welthandelsabkommens GATT ihre Arbeit. Wie sieht die Bilanz ihrer zehnjährigen Tätigkeit aus? Welche künftigen Herausforderungen kommen auf sie zu

Zehn Jahre WTO: eine Standortbestimmung

Am 1. Januar 1995 begann die World Trade Organization WTO als Nachfolgerin des Welthandelsabkommens GATT ihre Arbeit. Wie sieht die Bilanz ihrer zehnjährigen Tätigkeit aus? Welche künftigen Herausforderungen kommen auf sie zu? --

The TRIPs agreement without a competition agreement?

This paper addresses the relationship of intellectual property rights and competition policies and rules addressing the conduct of private enterprise. Intellectual property rights are considered to be essential, but not sufficient, conditions for competition. Potentially excessive scope and use need to be balanced by way of competition rules. Such balance is partly inherent to the scope of IPRs and thus within the TRIPs Agreement. Partly, it will be achieved by applying competition rules. The proper balance, it is argued, does not necessarily require the establishment of comprehensive global disciplines on private party conduct and competition in the WTO. A number of reasons and conflicting interests are discussed. The paper argues that the balance can be adequately achieved by way of national or regional anti-trust rules, and efforts to bring about adequate legal regimes in particular in developing and transitional countries should be supported by national and international fora, including the WTO. There is no need at this stage, nor would the World be ready, for global anti-trust regimes and authorities. The paper, however, argues in favour of harmonisation of rules in two major areas: International legal assistance in the prosecution of restrictive business practices and restrictions in WTO law on export cartels. Both areas would considerably enhance the prospects for a balance between IPRs and competition rules, and thus for market access in world trade law

Brief 4: Lessons from the Multilateral Trading System for Reforming the Architecture of the International Environmental Regime

Recent studies on environmental regimes suggest that important lessons and policy recommendations may be drawn from the functioning of the multilateral trading regime. This brief compares the needs and goals of the trade and environment regimes, and discusses how insights from over sixty years of experience of the multilateral trading system might provide ideas for redesigning the architecture of the international environmental regime. It further calls for a better dialogue and improved complementarities between the two fields in order to enhance coherence within international law

Human Rights, Intellectual Property and Competition Law: From Fragmentation to Coherence

Paper presented by Cottier to the "IP, Competition and Human Rights" expert meeting held in 2004

Broad Concerns about Nanotechnology Patents: Symptoms and Diagnosis

We discuss the concerns that the patenting activity in the new nanotechnologies could blur the line between what is considered a discovery and what can be considered as an invention. We find that the nature of nanotechnology products, research, and the development agendas in science and engineering fields that include biomimetics pose a challenge to the present practice of including chemicals as eligible patent subject matter. After revisiting the historical development of patent law and noting its divergence from the developments in science and technology, we introduce the distinction between simple and complex machines as these relate to chemistry and nanotechnology. This distinction poses the question of what is the logical category of inventions that fall within patentable subject matter given that patent law was conceived to cover simple machines, not complex ones

The Potential of Tariff Policy for Climate Change Mitigation: Legal and Economic Analysis

This paper addresses a potential role that tariffs and tariff policy can play in encouraging countries to take part in a multilateral effort to mitigate climate change. It begins by assessing whether increasing tariffs on products from energy intensive or polluting industries amounts to a violation of WTO rules and whether protectionism in this case can be differentiated from genuine environmental concerns. It then argues that while lowering tariffs for environmental goods can serve as a carrot to promote dissemination of cleaner technologies, tariff deconsolidation is a legitimate stick to encourage polluting countries to move towards an international climate agreement. The paper further explores this view by undertaking a partialequilibrium simulation analysis to examine the impact of a unilateral unit increase in tariffs on the imports of the most carbon-intensive products from countries not committed to climate polices. Our results suggest that the committed importing countries would have to raise their tariffs only slightly to effect a significant decline in the imports of these products from the non-committed countries. For instance, a unit increase in the simple average applied tariffs on the imports of these carbon-intensive products in 2005 from our sample of non-committed exporting countries would reduce the imports of these products by an average 32.6% in Australia, 178% in Canada, 195% in the EU, 271% in Japan and 62% in the US, therebysuggesting the effectiveness of such a measure in pushing countries towards a global climate policy