New Technical Brief from the Commonwealth Secretariat:

Intellectual Property in European Union Economic Partnership Agreements with the African, Caribbean and Pacific Countries: What Way Forward, (April 2008) By Dalindyebo Shabalala*, Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), Geneva. Download

For much of late 2006 and 2007, the EU attempted to conclude comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the 76 member African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries. The aim was to conclude full and comprehensive agreements by the end of 2007 to meet a WTO deadline for bringing the EU’s preferential trade arrangements for goods with ACP countries in line with the WTO GATT. The only region to conclude a full EPA was the Caribbean region represented by Cariforum. All the ACP regions plan to continue negotiating towards full EPAs, but it remains unclear what the status of intellectual property will be in future negotiations and how the IPR provisions of the EU-Cariforum will influence the negotiation of other EPAs.

This technical brief highlights the main issues in the substantive CIEL paper which was initially prepared for OXFAM. It explores the implications of ACP Countries continuing negotiations for further IPR protection in EPAs by conducting an analysis to determine the exact nature of commitments that the ACP regions have made regarding the basis and scope of future negotiations on IPRs and examining some of the more significant provisions on IPRs in the EU-Cariforum EPA. It concludes with recommendations for future actions that ACP countries can take in their approach to IPRs in future EPA negotiations.

Download IPRs in the EPAs, by Dalindyebo Shabalala

Important: see also Intellectual Property in the CARIFORUM EPA, by Dianne Daley in the Jamaica Observer.