CIPIL Evening Seminar: 'Rethinking International Intellectual Property through the Third World Approaches to International Law'

Speaker: Dr Pratyush Nath Upreti, Senior Lecturer and Programme Director of IP LLM at the School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast 

Abstract: Over the past 25 years since the WTO TRIPS Agreement, the practice of intellectual property (IP) law has transformed significantly. The increasing interactions of IP with various other sub-fields of international law have presented new challenges and spurred the expansion of IP itself. The political economy of global IP governance, along with the arise of new technologies and the shift towards Fourth Industrial Revolution, has allowed countries to enhance their economies. In this context, developed world continue to leverage IP to maximize wealth creation, whereas then TRIPS opponents developing countries such as India, South Africa and Brazil, have now reached a level of exporting IP rights globally. Interestingly, the very opponents of TRIPS, who previously resisted maximum protection of IP, are increasingly embracing TRIPS plus agreements. This development further widens the gap between least developed countries (LDCs) and developing or middle- income nations, as well as developed countries. Today, there is widespread scholarly interest in developing an approach to intellectual property law that addresses the social function of IPRs. This shift has become particularly evident in light of the global COVID-19 pandemic, which has further exposed the IP system and sparked discussions to minimise the global justice gap (for example public health) and create incentives to integrate sustainability into the IP system. These developments are important to LDCs, but the question remains if they can use international IP law tools and techniques to safeguard their sovereignty and promote sustainable and equitable IP practice. In this context, I employ the Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) as a framework to critically evaluate the international IP system and provide insights on how could we rethink international IP issues from the perspectives of least developed countries and beyond. 

Biography: Dr Pratyush Nath Upreti is a Senior Lecturer and Programme Director of IP LLM at the School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast. He holds a PhD from Sciences Po, Paris, an LLM from Maastricht University as an UM High Potential Scholar, and a BSc.LLB from KIIT Law School, India. Before moving to academia, he practiced law in Nepal. From 2018 to 2023, he was a fellow at Stanford Law School, Transatlantic Technology Law Forum (TTLF) and recently a visiting scholar at the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore.  More recently, he has commissioned studies on Mozambique for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and is an IP expert for the World Health Organization (WHO) South-East Asia. His research has been published in leading journals including the International & Comparative Law Quarterly (ICLQ), World Trade Review, the International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law (IIC), and the Berkeley Journal of International Law. He was awarded first prize in 2020 ATRIP Essay Competition for Young Researchers. His book, Intellectual Property Objectives in International Investment Agreements (Edward Elgar, 2022) was voted for the IPKat 2022 Intellectual Property Law Book of the Year! 

This event is a hybrid event. To attend online you must register via Zoom.