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17 Emory Int'l L. Rev. 475 (2003)
Intellectual Property Protection and Public Health in the Developing World

handle is hein.journals/emint17 and id is 485 raw text is: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PROTECTION AND PUBLIC HEALTH IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD Eric Reinhardt* My topic today is how intellectual property protection, particularly the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) component of the World Trade Organization (WTO), affects the interests of developing countries. My perspective on the issues that we're discussing at this conference will be much broader and more oriented toward government policy than that adopted in many of the earlier presentations. Intellectual property protection is the subject, of course, of a heated debate. I would like to acquaint you with a body of scholarship that corrects a number of widely subscribed misconceptions about intellectual property and its effects on developing countries. This scholarship yields a much more nuanced answer to the debate. The basic debate is driven on one side by the fundamental, almost ideological, commitment of neoclassical economic theory that property rights, and in this case intellectual property rights, are the key to resolving the problems impeding economic growth. Property rights solve market failure problems, and in the area of intellectual property, they encourage innovation that might not otherwise occur. Such innovation is an engine of growth. Critics claim this effect has not materialized, at least for developing countries. Perhaps you've heard the traditional joke about the economist's wife: she says to her friend, I'm thinking of leaving my husband. All he ever does is stand at the foot of the bed and tell me how great things are going to be. The promise of intellectual property protection-to nurture the kinds of innovation which serve as the engine * Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Emory University. The author would like to thank Marc Busch, Bill Davey, Petros Mavroidis, Joost Pauwelyn, and Hannu Wagner for their insightful comments and suggestions.