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List of contents
1. General Overview
I. Introduction
II. Terminology
III. Why Brazil and India?
IV. Book Outline
2. Understanding Patents
I. Introduction
II. The National Phase
III. The Multilateral Phase – The Paris Convention
IV. The Global Phase – TRIPS Agreement
V. Conclusion
3. Views from the South: Critical Approaches to the Global Patent Regime
I. Introduction
Part I: TWAIL Theory
II. Understanding TWAIL
III. Situating TWAIL within the Global Patent Regime
IV. Reading TRIPS Text through Twailian Lens
V. Mind the Gap: On Limitations of TWAIL
Part II: Nodal Governance
VI. Understanding Nodal Governance
VII. Nodal Governance and the Pharmaceutical Patent Regime
VIII. Application of Nodal Governance to this Study
IX. Conclusion
4. Brazil – The Juridical State
I. Introduction
II. Historical Evolution of the Patent Regime in Brazil
III. Unpacking the Industrial Property Law of Brazil
IV. The Constitutional Right to Health
V. Resistance from Below: Social Movement and Patent Law
VI. Engaging with the World: Towards Development
VII. Conclusion
5. India: From Little Acorns to Mighty Oaks
I. Introduction
II. Historical Evolution of Patent Law in India
III. Development and Competing Interests
IV. Indian Patents (Amendment) Act of 2005: Unpacking Key Issues
V. Medicine Access and the Nation-State as Site of Global Struggles
VI. Conclusion
6. Nigeria: Disconnects, Discontinuities and the Spectacle of Reform
I. Introduction
II. Historical Evolution of the Patent Regime in Nigeria
III. Unpacking the Patents and Designs Act of 1990
IV. State Regulatory Agencies and Patent Regime
V. Patent Law-making and Nigerian Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Sector
VI. Conclusion
7. General Conclusions
I. Appraising the Discussion
II. What is the Way Forward for Nigeria?
About the author
Dr. Amaka Vanni is a legal scholar and documentary filmmaker based in Lagos, Nigeria. Her work lies at the intersection of international economic law, development, and global governance. Her research and teaching are on topics of intellectual property, international trade, global health, philantrocapitalism, gender, legal theory and history, human right and the impact of colonialism on various aspect of postcolonial societies. She completed an undergraduate degree in International Relations and Politics at Keele University, UK. She holds a Masters in Law degree in International Economic Law and completed a doctorate in same field from the University of Warwick. Her doctoral thesis won the 2018 SIEL–Hart Prize in International Economic Law.
Summary
In this thought-provoking analysis, the author takes three examples of emerging markets (Brazil, India, and Nigeria) and tells their stories of pharmaceutical patent law-making.
Adopting historiographical and socio-legal approaches, focus is drawn to the role of history, social networks and how relationships between a variety of actors shape the framing of, and subsequently the responses to, national implementation of international patent law. In doing so, the book reveals why the experience of Nigeria – a country active in opposing the inclusion of IP to the WTO framework during the Uruguay Rounds – is so different from that of Brazil and India.
This book makes an original and useful contribution to the further understanding of how both states and non-state actors conceptualise, establish and interpret pharmaceutical patents law, and its domestic implications on medicines access, public health and development. Patent Games in the Global South was awarded the 2018 SIEL–Hart Prize in International Economic Law.
Foreword
Timely and thought-provoking contribution to the further understanding of the international framework for the protection of IP rights, and its domestic implications on medicines access and public health.
Additional text
From a Global South, bottom-up perspective, patent law is not only a field in which a series of crucially important disputes about the present and future ownership of knowledge are taking place. It is also a key component of a large assemblage known as global governance, which started with the European colonial project and which continues to shape our lives today via WTO and other international rules and a myriad of domestic regulations. Amaka Vanni takes up the challenge in this wonderful book of showing the impact of this complex history in relation to pharmaceuticals and the countless battles that are currently being fought to overcome its effects in Brazil, India and Nigeria. Anyone interested in the multiple ways in which global history is woven into the fabric of the international legal order and, in turn, into the bodies – healthy and troubled - of Southern subjects, must start with Patent Games in the Global South.