Private Power, Public Law: The Globalization of Intellectual Property Rights

by Susan K. Sell

Overview

Susan Sell's book reveals how power in international politics is increasingly exercised by private interests rather than governments. In 1994 the World Trade Organization (WTO) adopted the Agreement in Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which dictated to states how they should regulate the protection of intellectual property. This book argues that TRIPS resulted from lobbying by powerful multinational corporations who wished to mould international law to protect their markets.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521819145
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	05/15/2003
Series:	Cambridge Studies in International Relations , #88
Pages:	244
Product dimensions:	6.22(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.83(d)

About the Author

Susan K. Sell is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at The George Washington University. She is the author of Power and Ideas: The North-South Politics of Intellectual Property and Antitrust (1998).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction; 2. Structures, agents, and institutions; 3. US intellectual property rights in historical perspective; 4. The domestic origins of a trade-based approach to intellectual property; 5. The Intellectual Property Committee and transnational mobilization; 6. Life after TRIPS: aggression and opposition; 7. Conclusion: structured agency revisited.

Editorial Reviews

"...a remarkably gripping narrative that powerfully challenges some traditional beliefs...In addition to providing accessible and concise accounts of the genesis and subsequent development of TRIPS [Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights], Professor Sell also provides additional insights of her own that make her book particularly notable as a resource...This book should have wide appeal to a diverse audience that includes political scientists or international relations theorists, as well as those who are more interested primarily in TRIPS, or the development of international intellectual property law." Emory International Law Review

From the Publisher