Thesis (M.S.)--Auburn University, 2008. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 41-43).

This master thesis is focused on the Transtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and its possible impact on the EU and the US. The aim is to examine the economic and geopolitical implications that could come out of this deal. Closer look on this issue should bring a complex overview on the most discussed trade agreement in international relationship in the 21st century. Comparative approach will be used for detail analysis. Thesis deals with the comparison with current state of bilateral trade between EU and US. In more details TTIP negotiations are being described in this thesis as well its basic concept, advantages and disadvantages for both parties and impacts on Europe and US markets.

EU-Ukraine trade relations are important for both parties: for the EU it is a new market with huge land and labor potential, for Ukraine it is a short-term perspective to modernize it's economy. For now the trade and investment relations are not developed as they can be, in this work we analyze the current trade and investment flows between EU and Ukraine, determine the key partners and industries. In order to bring the relations to the new level, we analyze the possible impact of Free Trade Agreement on the both sides in general and more specifically regarding key industries. The result is the recommendation to continue EU-Ukraine integration, especially in terms of economical cooperation.

The abundance of wealth and technology in the North, and biological diversity and poverty in the South provokes an inquiry into an appropriate modality for the equitable harnessing and allocation of biodiversity dividends. Over the years, the traditional knowledge relating to biological diversity has been regarded as part of the "global intellectual commons", open to exploitation by all, and subject to validation by formal methods. That knowledge has remained the source of both increasing knowledge and critical discoveries of the therapeutic values of most components of biological diversity. There is a consensus between the North and the South that an effective biodiversity conservation strategy should be one capable of providing incentives to the traditional custodians of wild habitat. Intellectual property is generally recognised as an appropriate framework to implement this objective. However, as a perennial subject of North-South disagreement, there is no consensus on the relevant details or mechanisms for deploying intellectual property rights to effectuate the objective. The United Nations Framework Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) signifies a global regime embodying the ideals of incentivising the traditional custodians of the wild habitat as well as equitable sharing of the benefits of biodiversity. Arguably, it marks an end to the idea of regarding traditional knowledge as part of the global intellectual commons. This thesis contends that the CBD regime carries with it the burden of unresolved North-South perspectives on intellectual property rights. It argues that the heart of the conflict is the reluctance of the North to accord intellectual property status to traditional knowledge. This is partly because of the latter's informal nature but most importantly it derives from an inherent geo-political ideological conflict on the subject of intellectual property rights. Presently, the recognition of rights over traditional knowledge is approached on a sui generis basis. This thesis takes the position that the approach with its several limitations is not persuasive. It contends that on the merits, traditional knowledge is, and ought to be recognised as a subject matter of intellectual property rights. The recent elevation of intellectual property (a traditional subject matter of national law) to the international level under the WTO/TRIPs Agreement further undermines traditional knowledge. This has posed a setback not only to the global biodiversity conservation initiative, but also to the quest for equitable allocation of its dividends. It is my thesis that a national approach offers a better option for accommodating the intellectual property status of traditional knowledge and consequentially for advancing the quest for biodiversity conservation as well as equitable allocation of the dividends arising therefrom. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate

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China¡¦s behavior towards the intellectual property rights (IPR) regime is a reflection of the tug-of-war between regime and national interest. IPR, a concept foreign to Chinese culture, began to influence China following the reforms of 1978 through both external and internal pressures. This paper attempts to show how the power of international rules and national interests impacts China¡¦s IPR behavior by analyzing its attitude towards IPR negotiations, trends related to its IPR legal framework and enforcement. This analysis can be broken down into three different periods. 1. 1979-1990: Interaction between national interest and international norm. China¡¦s action of both participating in the world IPR regime and the building of a domestic IPR system was to large extent motivated by self-interest. China needed a systematic IPR framework in place to meet its new economic conditions: attracting FDI and technology transfers while protecting indigenous infant industries. However, there is little evidence that China¡¦s actions during this period showed compliance with the global IPR regime. 2. 1990-2000: Moving towards compromise. China¡¦s negotiations with the United States dominated trends in its IPR reform and reoriented China¡¦s national interests. As China¡¦s largest trade partner and hegemon in the IPR issue area, the U.S. played a strong role in making Chinese IPR laws more transparent and aligned with the international standard. For sustaining economic development, China realized it needed to create an environment friendly to foreign investors and protect its growing export industry of patented products, and Chinese leaders therefore conceded to a large part of U.S.¡¦s demands. Nonetheless, the reform mostly focused on the legal system while enforcement was overlooked, continuing the rampant IPR infringement. 3. 21st century: Compliance under the WTO regime. Through its experience in the 1990s, and its membership in the WTO, China¡¦s IPR policies in the 21st century have become more proactive and globalized, implying that China is willing to accept higher degrees of interdependence. In this period, China has strived to conform to TRIPS (Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) and has tackled its enforcement problem with a number of practical administrative and judicial policies to help reassure foreign investors and a growing amount of local IPR holders of the security of their IP. In the end however, the analysis in this paper still shows that China¡¦s current IPR protection policies still favor China¡¦s national interests over the interests of the global IPR regime. This paper finds that the global IPR regime has helped to influence a new agenda for the PRC: to pursue a knowldege-based economy as a development goal. China now intends to follow the rules of the global IPR regime. The central government's capability of enforceing IPR policy at every level of government is an important benchmark in examining China's response to the global IPR regime in the future.

In the last decade, World Trade Organization (WTO) Members have paid little attention to the WTO rulemaking processes and their functioning. Two high-levels commissions, as well as some scholars, have identified several areas of concerns with respect to the WTO rulemaking processes. Some of them have put forth proposals for their reform. However, the WTO has not proceeded with or even reflected upon any major reforms affecting the functioning of its rulemaking processes. The lack of attention by the Members regarding these issues motivated the focus of this thesis on the legitimacy of the WTO rulemaking processes. The principal research question of this thesis is: Are the WTO rulemaking processes legitimate? To what degree? Answering this first research question necessarily leads to a secondary one: How can the WTO rulemaking processes be assessed? This thesis recognizes that there is no uniform way for assessing legitimacy both at the national and international levels. It borrows from David Beetham's legitimacy conception and assesses the legitimacy of the WTO rulemaking processes from the standpoint of WTO Members. It builds a theoretical framework for assessing the legitimacy of the rulemaking processes on the basis of Members' conception of the WTO and the concepts of input and output legitimacy that have been frequently applied to the WTO and from which are derived four legitimacy criteria: legality, effectiveness, representativeness and openness. This thesis furthermore advances that legitimacy can only be effectively assessed as a matter of degree and, therefore, develops a multidimensional interval scale to allow a precise measurement of the four criteria of legitimacy as applied to the WTO rulemaking processes. In order to assess the rulemaking processes, it uses three cases that have led to the adoption of new rules or agreements. In fact, legitimacy matters even more for the processes that led to actual rules due to the fact that they generate binding outcomes. Such a methodology based on case studies arguably provides a more accurate representation of the WTO rulemaking processes than the general processes that have been described in the secondary literature.

International Protection of Industrial Rights Abstract The aim of thesis is to analyse international protection of industrial rights. Emphasis is placed on theoretical aspects of international law, specifics of functioning of international system, reasons explaining why the protection of industrial rights is included into international law and consequences of that. On the contrary thesis avoids detailed analysis of relevant international treaties which does not apply to TRIPS Agreement for its underlying significance of current system of international protection of industrial rights. Thesis is composed of nine chapters, including introduction and conclusion. Just after introduction the chapter dedicated to a brief introduction to basic terms of industrial rights is included. The introduction to the international level is represented in chapter three, this chapter tries to map the evolution and reasons of creation the protection of industrial rights on the international level from the half of 19th century to the present. Some current issues are also discussed here. Chapter four consists of two parts. First part focuses on international treaties, the crucial source of law on protection of industrial rights. Not only multilateral agreements but also bilateral agreements are discussed here. Second part deals...

本論文首先闡述ＧＡＴＳ下視聽服務業之內容、特性及視聽服務業中常見之貿易障礙態樣，次則探討視聽服務業之爭議始末，繼而分析ＧＡＴＳ之規範內容與剖析會員之承諾情形，俾供主管機關參考。此外，本論文亦就同受ＷＴＯ監管及規範之ＴＲＩＰｓ中有關著作權之規定予以闡釋，並進一步與我國著作權法比較，以期使本研究周全。最後則檢視我國視聽服務業之相關法規中，有無與ＧＡＴＳ相悖之處，並提出建議，期為主管機關修法時之參考依據。

<p>The general objective of the proposed research is to do a needs analysis for the tourism and hospitality industries of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland. This will be followed by an alignment of these industries with the provisions of the General Agreement of Trade in Services, commonly known as GATS, so that a Tourism and Hospitality Services Charter may be moulded that may be used uniformly throughout SACU. The specific objectives of the research are: To analyze impact assessment reports and studies conducted on the Tourism and Hospitality Industries for all five SACU member states with the aim of harmonizing standards, costs and border procedures. To ecognize SACU member states&rsquo / schedule of GATS Commitments, especially in the service sectors being investigated, by improving market access, and to recommend minimal infrastructural development levels to be attained for such sectors&rsquo / support. To make recommendations to harness the challenges faced by the said industries into a working document. To calibrate a uniformity of trade standards in these sectors that shall be used by the SACU membership. To ensure that the template is flexible enough for SACU to easily adopt and use in ongoing bilateral negotiations, for example.</p>