The newly adopted World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Development Agenda presents a real opportunity to revolutionize the international governance of intellectual property law and policy. The litmus test for its success, however, will be if and how the agenda is implemented in practice. This edited collection brings together a series of incisive essays written by leading thinkers from emerging economies, Canada, and elsewhere to develop concrete strategies for implementing the agenda.
The essays cover a range of fundamental issues surrounding the agenda and examine its recommendations from multidisciplinary and multi-regional perspectives. Several essays explore the role of WIPO and its member states in steering the direction of future reform as well as potential approaches to achieve this goal. Other contributions examine specific recommendations on WIPO’s activities within the broader context of development.
This volume will be a useful source of reference for informed but non-expert readers, including government officials and delegates at international and “capital” levels, leaders of the international business community, individuals in inter- and non-governmental organizations, and scholars in the fields of law and international governance.
Co-published with the International Development Research Centre and the Centre for International Governance Innovation

Jeremy de Beer is an associate professor of law at the University of Ottawa. His research and recent publications relate mainly to the intersection of intellectual property, technology, and international development.

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Implementing the World Intellectual Property Organization's Development Agenda is indispensable and most timely.... The overall quality of the collection is quite impressive.

Edward Kwakwa, WIPO, Geneva, Canadian Foreign Policy, 2011, 2011 May

An effort to understand where WIPO came from and how it got where it is today ... a crucial understanding and ... probably what is going to make the biggest difference to future attempts to change the organization ... this book is the first full-length publication on the WIPO Development Agenda and is therefore a major contribution. It is particularly interesting because it addresses history and offers a range of ideas on the way forward.... It will be fools who rush in without reading this crucial documentation of the process, and they will certainly fail to make lasting change at WIPO.

Heather Budge-Reid, Ideas in Development Blog, July 2009, 2009 April

If it is to be successful, the Development Agenda will need input not just from national delegates at WIPO or from the Secretariat but also from leading academics and others (civil society). This book is precisely such a contribution.

Daniel J. Gervais, Vanderbilt University Law School (from the Foreword), 2009 April