ABSTRACT
Although much has been written and debated about the internationalisation of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in recent times, it is far from being a new phenomenon. It started at the end of the 19th century, with the adoption of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (‘Paris Convention’) and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (hereinafter ‘the Berne Convention’) in 1883 and 1896, respectively.1 These two ground-breaking international conventions provided the platform for the adoption of legislation on industrial property and authors’ rights practically worldwide. After almost a century of little normative activity (except for various revisions of said conventions) the process of internationalisation of IPRs received a strong impetus in the 1960s and 1970s with the adoption of several new international conventions.2 In the second half of the 1970s, developing countries attempted, in the context of new perspectives on development,3 to move forward a revision of the Paris Convention that would provide more fl exibility in industrial property legislation, particularly in the area of compulsory licences. This initiative, however, was defeated by developed countries, whose counter-offensive eventually led to the adoption in 1994 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) in the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO), followed by the Trademark Law Treaty (1994), the WIPO Copyright Treaty (1996), the WIPO Performers and Phonograms Treaty (1996) and the Patent Law Treaty (2000). The TRIPS Agreement represented a quantum leap in the international protection of IPRs, as it established high minimum standards in most areas of IPRs, which are mandatory for all WTO Members and subject to the WTO dispute settlement mechanism in cases of non-compliance. Unlike other international conventions on IPRs, violations to the TRIPS Agreement may lead to trade retaliations, legitimized by the WTO procedures.4
