Some of our IP-skeptic friends are really
big on international agreements, declarations, and treaties.
In my cynical view, the IP-skeptic community has decided that they can't get what they want in terms of their anti-capitalist, anti-corporate agenda through the legislative process in the U.S., so they've focused their attention on doing an end-run around the U.S. system and are hoping to impose their agenda through international bodies and international agreements. And are using the poverty of developing nations as the moral authority they need to borrow in order to justify their agenda.
Perhaps that's too cynical a view.
But I was recently apprised of some very interesting language in some international declarations and agreements that definitely asserts the rights of IP rightsholders, the right of creators to own and benefit from their creations, etc.
[I owe great credit to Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society for the research that identified these quotations.]
There may be more references to the importance of property and intellectual property in international agreements, but here are a few to start things off:
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 17: "Everyone has the right to own property" and "no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property."
Article 27: "Everyone has the right to the protection and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary, or artistic production of which he is the author."
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Article 6: Recognizes "the right to work" and says that States should adopt "policies and techniques to achieve steady economic . . . development . . . under conditions safeguarding fundamental . . . economic freedoms to the individual."
Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action
Part One, Paragraph 10: "While development facilitates the enjoyment of all human rights, the lack of development may not be invoked to justify the abridgement of internationally recognized human rights."
Universal Declaration on the Human Genome
Article 14: "States should take appropriate measures to foster intellectual and material conditions favorable to freedom in the conduct of research."
In my cynical view, the IP-skeptic community has decided that they can't get what they want in terms of their anti-capitalist, anti-corporate agenda through the legislative process in the U.S., so they've focused their attention on doing an end-run around the U.S. system and are hoping to impose their agenda through international bodies and international agreements. And are using the poverty of developing nations as the moral authority they need to borrow in order to justify their agenda.
Perhaps that's too cynical a view.
But I was recently apprised of some very interesting language in some international declarations and agreements that definitely asserts the rights of IP rightsholders, the right of creators to own and benefit from their creations, etc.
[I owe great credit to Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society for the research that identified these quotations.]
There may be more references to the importance of property and intellectual property in international agreements, but here are a few to start things off:
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 17: "Everyone has the right to own property" and "no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property."
Article 27: "Everyone has the right to the protection and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary, or artistic production of which he is the author."
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Article 6: Recognizes "the right to work" and says that States should adopt "policies and techniques to achieve steady economic . . . development . . . under conditions safeguarding fundamental . . . economic freedoms to the individual."
Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action
Part One, Paragraph 10: "While development facilitates the enjoyment of all human rights, the lack of development may not be invoked to justify the abridgement of internationally recognized human rights."
Universal Declaration on the Human Genome
Article 14: "States should take appropriate measures to foster intellectual and material conditions favorable to freedom in the conduct of research."