Mapping the Fragmented Matrix of Trade, Culture and IP in Global Law

The paper was invited as part of the panel 'Law and Politics in a Fragmented Intellectual Property Rights Regime' chaired by  Susan K. Sell of the George Washington University and with Heiko Baumgärtner, visiting fellow at George Washington University and a fellow of the University of Lucerne, acting as a discussant. My presentation offered an analysis of one particular group of rules at the international level that fall within the matrix of trade, culture and intellectual property (IP). What holds this matrix together is the very object of all rules, i.e. cultural goods and services. I traced the contours of this matrix and explored the intersecting domains of trade, culture and IP regulation. I argued that these are particularly complex and fragmented because of the strong path dependencies in international policymaking and the lack of any (or any meaningful) dialogue between these in reality intrinsically related fields. I also argued that the trade-culture-IP triad is interestingly different from other complex regimes such as the well discussed IP and access to medicines quandary. A most remarkable such difference, which is potentially of higher interest to political scientists than to legal scholars, is that the developed vs. developing countries (‘strong’ vs. ‘weak’) game, that is customarily looked into in the global IP debate, has not played out similarly here. Another peculiarity that adds an extra level of complexity to the analysis but also a number of exciting challenges and possibilities for reform, is the fact that the regulatory environment, where the matrix of trade, culture and trade is located, has changed due to the advent and wide spread of digital technologies. The ensuing and truly profound modifications in the conditions of information production, organisation, distribution and access have only been partly and rather haphazardly taken into account in the spheres of trade, culture and trade policymaking.   The other contributions to the panel were from an international relations perspective and focused on 'Explaining China's (Non)compliance with International Intellectual Property Rights Regime: The Case of Copyright
(Zhenqing Zhang: University of Minnesota, Twin Cities); 'Socialization and Legal Transplants: Believing in the Virtues of IP Law' (Jean‐Frédéric Morin: Universite libre de Bruxelles); 'The Political Economy of Legislation for Intellectual
Property Rights: Patent Protection in the World' (Hong Pang: University of Southern California).