My article "The World Intellectual Property Organization and the sustainable development agenda" is now published. This paper was developed as a keynote talk for the Intellectual Property and Sustainable Development Conference which took place on September 6, 2018 at the Queensland University of Technology.
Abstract
The UN’s Agenda for Sustainable Development is being taken up throughout
the international system, including at the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO). This article examines WIPO’s approach to the
sustainable development agenda in light of its past approaches to
development. In the first part of this article, I outline some of the
longstanding major critiques of the discourse of sustainability, noting
that these critiques anticipated the current lamentable status of a
sustainable development agenda for WIPO. Next, I discuss the history of
development agendas at WIPO in the context of WIPO’s history and role at
the centre of the global intellectual property system. I then ask what
role intellectual property has to play in the SDGs. I conclude by
suggesting that an adequate agenda for sustainable development is
unlikely to be developed at WIPO and must, rather, come from outside.
Read the full article.
Citation: Bannerman, Sara. "The World Intellectual Property Organization and the sustainable development agenda." Futures 122(2020): 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2020.102586
Thanks to Professor Matthew Rimmer and the QUT IP and Innovation Law Research Program for their invitation to the conference. Thanks also to Emmanuel Appiah for his
research assistance. This research would not have been possible without
the support of, and funding from, McMaster University and the Canada
Research Chairs program.
