Very pleased to see this finally posted on the IGF website. All comments welcome - this is the report of the workshop we held at the Internet Governance Forum at Sharm El Sheikh in November.
It was an excellent event, with two strong themes emerging: 1) the interface between IP, competition and human rights can have a key role in securing access to essential technologies and 2) that a global solution is likely not the most effective route forward, given the social and cultural differences, and attitudes to and existence of human rights and competition.
Since then, I've been speaking with colleagues and former colleagues about possible new courses and national surveys; preparing draft abstracts for work combining the three fields at WTO dispute settlement (if they should be combined at national level)and considering the impact of human rights on courts considering non parties in actions in the UK jurisdictions; and doing a lot of work on climate change technologies, including a paper on lessons for access to climate change technologies (eg wave power, carbon storage) from the IP and health debate (building on a paper given in Edinburgh before Christmas - http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/staff/navrajsinghghaleigh/theeuclimatechangeandglobalenvironmentalgovernance.aspx) and paper for BILETA in Vienna bringing competition into that work.
Interesting times...
