CIPIL Webinar: 'Technical Assistance as a Tool for Implementing and Expanding IP Treaty Obligations'

Title: 'Technical Assistance as a Tool for Implementing and Expanding IP Treaty Obligations'

Speaker: Dr Daniel Acquah, Turku Institute for Advanced Studies (TIAS)

Biography

Daniel Acquah is a Research Fellow at the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies (TIAS) and an Associate Researcher at the Institute for European Studies (VUB), Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He also lectures and is the course coordinator of “Simulating International Intellectual Property Treaty Negotiation” and “Intellectual Property, Trade and Development.” Acquah’s current research focuses on the central role of technical assistance in the constitutionalization of intellectual property (IP) norms in Africa.

Abstract

This presentation looks critically at the role of technical assistance in the implementation and expansion of intellectual property norms in Africa using the protection of plant variety as an illustrative example. It focuses mainly on technical assistance from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV). Intellectual property has become one of the defining assets of the contemporary global political economy and its central place in current debates over covid-19 essentials such as vaccines attest to its urgent importance. In Africa, the protection of intellectual property is increasingly taking centre stage as a driver of economic development despite its overt negative effects. The central argument is that technical assistance should be seen as a vector of ideas and practices that have progressively led to the systemic integration of African countries into the international intellectual property system (adherence overdrive) and the curious case of countries inadvertently neglecting the flexibilities inherent in the intellectual property system when formulating national laws and policy (compliance overdrive).

Zoom registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_vD-BLH1mQE-cj5gQnAaNow