The Political Economy of Pharmaceutical Patents: US Sectional Interests and the African Group at the WTO [Paperback]

This book provides a fresh, multidisciplinary, and exciting look at the making and remaking of pharmaceutical patents at the GATT/WTO, by utilising a Coxian political economy of continuity and change in the global political economy (GPE). Marcellin focuses on the role of the transnational drug industry in the making of the patent provisions in the original TRIPS Agreement and consequently, the role of the African Group at the WTO in the remaking of those patent provisions.Contents: Introduction; Explaining 'who gets what' in international trade decision-making; North/South controversies in the TRIPS negotiations: between hegemony and domination?; Consensus formation in the TRIPS negotiations: agendas, agents and turning points; Legitimacy and the TRIPS agreement: globalised law as 'consent without consent'; The post-TRIPS context and the intensification of a contested terrain: the rise of the African Group (AG) at the WTO?; Conclusion; List of interviewees; References; Index.A fresh, multidisciplinary and exciting look at the making and remaking of pharmaceutical patents at the GAT/WTO, utilizing a Coxian political economy of continuity and change in the global political economy (GPE). Marcellin addresses the role of the transnational drug industry in the making of the patent provisions in the original TRIPS Agreement, and consequently the role of the African Group at the WTO in the remaking of patent provisions.Sherry S. Marcellin, London School of Economics, UK'This authoritative study gives us new insights on 'who gets what' in international trade decision-making and the capacity of even the politically weakest parts of the Global South to generate resistance despite the power of the transnational drug industry. The deployment of Cox's historical structures framework provides a lens to examine the role social, cultural and economic forces play in constituting and reconstituting the prevailing order.' Wyn Grant, University of Warwick. UK 'The book provide a compelcS