Private Intellectual Property Regulation in Public International Law

The aim of this article is to show how private rights, as understood within the context of intellectual property are no longer the domain of domestic regulation; rather, they are now within the purview of public international regulation. As such, private rights have now contributed to the “privatization” of public international law, where the interaction of applicable laws under domestic law shapes the interpretation and outcome of how public international law determines global economic relations. The article assesses the international regulatory domain of intellectual property rights under public international law instruments to show how intellectual property rights norms evolved as regulatory tools in the global economic system. The main question that this article addresses is whether contemporary expansion of intellectual property norms has globalised private rights, and if so, what role such developments play in shaping international intellectual property treaties. The article demonstrates that international intellectual property instruments emerged at the end of the nineteenth century and started the privatization revolution of public international law. I first examine the Paris and Berne Conventions in order to understand their role in the globalisation of norms pertaining to contemporary international intellectual property. I then turn to some of the twentieth century treaties and also how the TRIPS Agreement eventually “codified” the privatization of international law. I conclude with some assessment of private rights in international law especially pointing to how some of the critics failed to take into account the “legal process” of the privatization of international law through intellectual property international instruments