This article investigates the circumstances under which the agenda of intellectual property rights (IPRs) influences the decision of states to pursue preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Governments are often prone to negotiate PTAs due to distinctive pressures from IPR-intensive industries to disseminate TRIPS-Plus standards, which are particularly willing to capitalize on the advantages of preferential arrangements. To illustrate this argument, we examine the processes around the expansion of IPR provisions in the PTAs signed by the United States with Latin American countries, as enabled by the Trade Promotion Authority Act of 2002. We find that, while broad variations of TRIPS-Plus standards emerged across these PTAs, both governments and private sector tend to perceive gains from this setup, since PTAs are unlikely to undermine the IPR standards achieved by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (hereinafter ‘TRIPS Agreement’), but still provide opportunity for the promotion of higher IPR standards in each individual market.
The United States has a complex legal and institutional setting in place for the negotiation and implementation of international trade agreements. Such framework defines the roles of the president, Congress, and private advisory committees. This dissertation analyzes how such actors interacted to negotiate and implement the intellectual property rights included in preferential trade agreements from 1995-2000 and 2001-2012. The analysis of the first period relies on statements by members of the United States Congress and concludes that the intellectual property rights negotiated with trade partners influenced the overall U.S. trade policy and the domestic patent legislation. As regards the second period, we focus on the intellectual property rights applied to the production and trade of pharmaceuticals because since 2001 health-related concerns had become key traderelated issues. The analysis of the 2001-2012 period also relies on official reports produced by industry advisory committees. We identified patterns in views expressed by members of Congress and concluded that the influence of the committees was limited in scope and in time. Since both domestic and international factors influenced the U.S. trade policy at that time, throughout this dissertation we rely on theories about the two-level interactions.
Despite the large body of literature on the connection between intellectual property rights (IPRs) and trade at the international level, less attention has been paid to the impacts of such rights included in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on domestic legislative debates. This article contributes to filling this gap by analyzing debates in the U.S. legislature where the IPRs included in PTAs were referred to. We consider the 1995–2012 period (104th to 112th Congresses). We also analyze trade laws enacted by Congress over the period. The data suggest that the IPRs negotiated with foreign partners affect Congress voting on the concession of trade promotion authority to the president. They may also trigger urges for adjustments to trade agreements and be tapped into by members of Congress to advocate for changes to domestic patent legislation. The importance placed on IPRs by members of Congress was not consistent over time and across parties. These results suggest that theoretical explanations of the U.S. trade policy must account for the diversity of views at the domestic level and for how such often divergent sentiments translate into policies, as framed by the domestic laws and institutions in place.
TEODORO, J.P.H. The intellectual property rights of the preferential trade agreements signed by the United States with Latin American countries during the 2000s: motives and normative outcomes. 2015. 65 f. Dissertação (Mestrado)
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