Workshop organized by CIEL, ICTSD, and TRALAC
October 6, 2006
Free trade agreements (FTAs) are mushrooming at the regional and bilateral level. According to the World Bank, (See “Global Economic Perspectives, Trade, Regionalism, and Development”, The World Bank, 2004.) the number of agreements in force now surpasses 250, and has increased six fold in just two decades.
The principle driving force behind this trend has been the USA, which has led the emergence of a new generation of FTAs that include comprehensive chapters on intellectual property (IP) going well beyond the WTO’s TRIPS Agreement (“TRIPS-plus”). The United States Trade Representative (USTR) is further negotiating a number of FTAs under the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which is to expire in July 2007,. On their part, the EU and EFTA have also been active in producing trade agreements with different emphases on IP issues. It is expected that the EU and EFTA bilateral models might become more aggressive in certain areas such as geographical indications and trademarks, UPOV-like plant variety protection, and increased enforcement.
While FTAs might offer important market access opportunities in developed countries a number of experts have expressed concerns that TRIPS-plus provisions reduce the opportunities to use flexibilities and exceptions that have been designed to safeguard certain public interest objectives and, for LDCs, remove any developmental benefits from the extension of the TRIPS transition period. Obligations in this new generation of FTAs raise many implementation challenges regarding policy coherence and maintenance of flexibilities left in those agreements. At the same time, most developing countries are still struggling to implement the minimum standards of the TRIPS Agreement.
Against this background, the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and its partners, Trade Law Centre for Southern Africa (tralac) and the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), are convening a workshop with the following objectives:
- To provide a platform for a strategic discussion between relevant stakeholders on important trends at the multilateral and bilateral levels;
- To generate a deeper understanding of new IP obligations in the new generation of FTAs; and
- To explore implications of new IP standards in FTAs on marketing of local products, biodiversity and traditional knowledge, and access to educational materials.
The workshop will be preceded by tralac’s annual conference on 5 and 6 October 2006 dealing with the current Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations between the EU and “SADC-7” and “ESA” groups respectively. For administrative purposes however it is necessary to register separately for these events. There is no registration fee for any of these events. Participants will need to make their own travel, accommodation and visa arrangements.
For more information see: http://www.tralac.org/scripts/content.php?id=5149