This book focuses on the legal governance of online platforms concerning direct and indirect discrimination against users in the housing, advertising, and labor markets. Through an extensive investigation of sources that include private company practices, antidiscrimination policies, collective and private litigation, court decisions, and public regulation, this book illustrates how statutory law and legal precedents in the E.U. and the U.S. are only partially equipped to address discrimination against statutorily protected classes in online platforms.In the analysis of the selected sources, the author showcases that the main obstacles to the full implementation of the equality principle rely on online platforms' structural challenges, including their aesthetic designs, matching tools, evaluation systems, and network effects that ultimately reinforce old biases against protected classes. In light of these structural challenges, the author concludes that the fight against discrimination in online platforms may produce the best results when oriented by a model of regulation that encourages private businesses to implement the principle of transparency, fairness and the active cooperation of antidiscrimination bodies.

The TRIPS Agreement is the most comprehensive and influential international treaty on intellectual property rights. It brings intellectual property rules into the framework of the World Trade Organization, obliging all WTO Member States to meet minimum standards of intellectual property protection and enforcement. This has required massive changes in some national laws, particularly in developing countries. This volume provides a detailed legal analysis of the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement, as well as elements to consider their economic implications in different legal and socio-economic contexts. This book provides an in depth analysis of the principles and of the substantive and enforcement provisions of the TRIPS Agreement, the most influential international treaty on intellectual property currently in force. It discusses the legal context in which the Agreement was negotiated, the objectives of their proponents and the nature of the obligations it created for the members of the World Trade Organization. In particular, it examines the minimum standards that must be implemented with regard to patents, trademarks, industrial designs, geographical indications, copyright and related rights, integrated circuits, trade-secrets and test data for pharmaceutical and agrochemical products. Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights: A Commentary on the TRIPS Agreement elaborates on the interpretation of provisions contained in said Agreement, in the light of the customary principles for the interpretation of international law. The analysis -which is supported by a review of the relevant GATT and WTO jurisprudence- identifies the policy space left to such members to implement their obligations in accordance with their own legal systems and public policy objectives, including in respect of complex issues such as patentability criteria, compulsory licenses, exceptions and limitations to copyright, border measures, injunctive relief and the protection of test data under the discipline of unfair competition.