International Economic Law and Policy Blog (Page 285)

International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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More Support for India's Patent Policies

From economists Joseph Stiglitz and Arjun Jayadev: The Indian Supreme Court’s refusal to uphold the patent on Gleevec, the blockbuster cancer drug developed by the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis, is good news for many of those in India suffering from cancer. If other developing countries follow India’s example,

"Is India undervaluing patents or is the rest of the world overvaluing them?"

Economist Arvind Subramanian comments on the Indian Supreme Court's Novartis ruling: Critics have suggested that India is a deviant for being the only country where Novartis’ claim has been rejected. Left out is the fact that even in the United States, the Novartis application—which was really for

Food Labelling: Can There Be Too Much Information?

A couple weeks ago, I asked the following question in relation to the U.S. COOL measure: "What will consumers think of seeing details on where the animal was 'born, raised, and slaughtered' on every package of meat?" CNN's Jake Tapper was intrigued by

Seven of the Nine DG Candidates Speak Out

Thanks to the efforts of leading WTO scholars and EUI professors Bernard Hoekman and Petros Mavroidis, today we have a better view of the perspectives and positions of seven of the nine candidates for Director-General of the WTO. Their e-book Race for the WTP Director General job: Seven candidates speak,

Arms Trade Treaty

The General Assembly has approved the conventional weapons trade treaty. While the treaty requires members to restrict exports in certain circumstances, it contains no reference to WTO law requirements, and Art. 26 on the relationship with other agreements seems to assert dominance. See Joost Pauwelyn's earlier post on

Is This One of Those Regulatory Trade Barriers Everyone Is Talking About?

One of the big issues in the US-EU trade talks is supposedly going to be "regulatory trade barriers." Everyone agrees there are significant economic gains to be had by eliminating these barriers. And I can imagine there are. But one problem is, it is not really clear what

Novartis, the Indian Supreme Court, and TRIPS

The Washington Post reports on a big patent decision at the Indian Supreme Court: India’s Supreme Court on Monday rejected a Swiss pharmaceutical company’s effort to patent an updated version of its cancer drug, a decision aimed at boosting a domestic generic drug manufacturing industry that supplies cheap

Cybersecurity and Trade Conflict

Over at Opinio Juris, Roger Alford talks about some new U.S. cybersecurity legislation that bars federal government purchases of IT equipment “produced, manufactured or assembled” by entities “owned, directed, or subsidized by the People’s Republic of China” unless the head of the purchasing agency consults with the FBI

Is the Biggest Trade in Cigarettes Battle Still Looming?

There has been a lot of excitement in the area of trade in cigarettes in recent years. We've had the Clove Cigarettes case. The Australian Plain Packaging case is starting up, and might spread if others adopt plain packaging. Trade concerns have been raised about Canadian rules on

The Future of the Publishing Industry and International Price Discrimination

Following-up on Perry's excellent post about the Supreme Court decision in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., I just wanted to offer some brief thoughts. A couple months ago, I saw this post from economics blogger Tyler Cowen, titled "What does equilibrium look like for the