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Rajan, Mira Sundara --- "Intellectual Property Law and Political Transformation: Post-Socialist Reform in Central and Eastern Europe" [2007] ELECD 280; in Westkamp, Guido (ed), "Emerging Issues in Intellectual Property" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: Emerging Issues in Intellectual Property

Editor(s): Westkamp, Guido

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845427757

Section: Chapter 11

Section Title: Intellectual Property Law and Political Transformation: Post-Socialist Reform in Central and Eastern Europe

Author(s): Rajan, Mira Sundara

Number of pages: 19

Extract:

11. Intellectual property law and political
transformation: Post-socialist reform
in Central and Eastern Europe
Mira Sundara Rajan

1. INTRODUCTION
Intellectual property rights have a number of implications for the transition to
democracy in post-socialist countries. Over the past decade of intensive law
reform efforts, however, the relationship between intellectual property and
political change in Central and Eastern Europe has not received the attention
it deserves. Rather, reform has been dominated by international demands for
the implementation of intellectual property standards that reflect the practices
of economically advanced countries. The standards of North American and
Western European countries are embodied in the TRIPs Agreement, the most
powerful legal instrument in the history of international copyright relations.
Despite its coercive character, which is generally acknowledged throughout
the world,1 the TRIPs Agreement offers the overwhelmingly strong incentive
of full participation in the international trade regime to less-developed coun-
tries. Transitional countries, like developing countries, have uniformly chosen
to pursue membership.
Most ex-socialist countries aspire to join the European Union. Unlike other
`developing' intellectual property jurisdictions, transitional countries therefore
face the additional challenge of meeting the requirements for IP regulation in the
European `internal market'. The EU is a member of the World Trade
Organisation (WTO), and a signatory to TRIPs. While it necessarily shares
many features of the TRIPs regime, however, the EU has approached interna-
tional copyright regulation by attempting to anticipate and supersede develop-
ments at the WTO, often leading to sophisticated copyright rules in the
...