This book considers whether the WTO agreement on 'Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights' (TRIPS) will become a vehicle for promoting greater international equity and engagement with the world economy or a tool for wealthy nations to extract excessive rents from poorer countries. Can TRIPS garner the necessary degree of legitimacy and public trust to deliver economic development? Can it become a key instrument for promoting international health and development? In response to these questions, the book proposes interpretive possibilities for the TRIPS' text along with implementation strategies to avoid the threat of its irrelevancy due, amongst other things, to free trade agreements containing TRIPS-plus terms. The book discusses the impact of TRIPS from various perspectives, including those of developing countries. It will be of interest to informed citizens, members of NGOs and students and academics concerned with the debate about the impact of TRIPS on access to medicines at affordable prices, the protection of traditional knowledge, and the alleged neo-colonial effect of net revenue outflows from developing nations to developed nations for copyright and patent royalties.

Privatization has captivated governments, policy makers and bureaucrats of both developed and developing countries in the latter decades of the 20th-century. It has led to the shifting of billions of dollars worth of assets from public to private ownership, the restructuring of industries, and the loss of thousands of jobs. Has it all been worth it and who has benefited? This edited collection examines the impact of privatization and the lessons to be learnt from it for the purpose of regulatory reform. The contributors analyze the benefits and losses of privatization in a variety of countries from economic, legal and consumer perspectives and address fundamental questions such as whether private ownership necessarily leads to better incentives for management and productivity. The book contains illustrative case studies of the Australian telecommunications industry, the deregulation of the Swedish taxi and postal industries, Californian telecommunications industries as well as discussing consumer responses to the privatization of key utilities in the UK. The impact of privatization in developing nations is also addressed, with particular reference to India and Malaysia.

This Commentary on the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) provides a detailed textual analysis of TRIPS - a pivotal international agreement on intellectual property rights.TRIPS sets minimum standards for national laws on copyright, patents, trademarks and other forms of intellectual property rights. TRIPS profoundly impacts upon the regulation of access to medicines, compulsory licensing of copyright material, geographical indicators and other significant IP-related matters. This reference book is a major authoritative work that is clearly organised and presented, allowing users to navigate quickly to commentary on any element of TRIPS. The book begins with a context-setting section, providing guidance on interpreting TRIPS. It considers the salient elements of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, the WTO Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes, and the preamble to the Agreement Establishing the WTO. The book then follows the seven part structure of TRIPS, and provides an article-by-article analysis of each of its 73 provisions and specifically addresses the interpretation of key phrases in each article. An essential resource for practitioners and scholars, this detailed and exhaustive volume will also prove invaluable to academics and students of intellectual property law, international law and trade law. It is a first point of reference for anyone needing to know more about TRIPS. Contents: 1. General Provisions and Basic Principles 2. Standards Concerning the Availability, Scope and Use of Intellectual Property Rights 3. Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights 4. Acquisition and Maintenance of Intellectual Property Rights and Related Inter-Partes Procedures 5. Dispute Prevention and Settlement 6. Transitional Arrangements 7. Institutional Arrangements; Final Provisions

This is the first Western-language research monograph detailing significant developments in consumer law and policy across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), underpinned by a growing middle class and implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community from 2016. Eight chapters examine consumer law topics within ASEAN member states (such as product safety and consumer contracts) and across them (financial and health services), as well as the interface with competition law and the nature of ASEAN as a unique and evolving international organisation. The authors include insights from extensive fieldwork, partly through consultancies for the ASEAN Secretariat, to provide a reliable, contextual and up-to-date analysis of consumer law and policy development across the region. The volume also draws on and contributes to theories of law and development in multiple fields, including comparative law, political economy and regional studies.