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22 March 2017Copyright

UN report calls for global IP reforms

A report released by the UN has called for reforms to the global IP rights regime.

The UN issued the “Human Development Report 2016” on Sunday, March 19 as part of the UN Development Programme, which works with 170 countries to eradicate poverty and reduce inequalities and exclusion.

IP-related reforms should include finalising the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Doha Round of negotiations, which are currently stalled, “reforming the global IP rights regime and reforming the global investor protection regime”.

According to the WTO, the Doha Round involves trade negotiations aiming to achieve major reform of the international trading system through the introduction of lower trade barriers and revised trade rules.

While the Doha Round has “offered some space for rebalancing the rules” from a development-orientated perspective, the report said that progress on the key issues has been limited.

In the Doha Round, international trade rules have been dominated by regional and bilateral trade agreements, the report stated.

Protecting investments and IP rights have become central to the Doha Round so that, in practice, industrial countries, which are the main source of foreign direct investment and patents, “use such agreements to obtain benefits”.

Payments of royalties and licences from developing to developed countries have “grown immensely since 1990”, the report said.

The report can be viewed in full here.

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