IGIR research lunch seminar, Transfer of technology from an international law and governance perspective, by Felipe de Andrade

States have struggled to fulfil their international transfer of technology (ToT) obligations, to the great discontent of technology dependant countries. After an early attempt to regulate ToT by means of a binding international code of conduct at UNCTAD, the international regime of ToT has been marked by fragmentation. There are norms in, among others, TRIPS, trade and investment agreements and technology-specific sub-regimes for environmental technologies.  In this presentation we argue that the fragmentation and indetermination of  international transfer of technology obligations reflect the discursive struggles around IP and development issues. Attempts to increase the normative weight of ToT obligations are related to circumstances such as decolonization and the New International Economic Order, the Doha Development Agenda and climate justice. Most of the scholarship systematize the evolution of the technology debate chronologically. In this presentation we propose an analytical framework for analyzing and comparing ToT obligations across different regimes in international law.  We make use of a global governance framework to understand the interactions between different regimes, their rules and institutions. We propose to classify ToT norms in cooperative and regulatory arrangements and to compare them according to the subjects of the norm, their level of bindingness and the means of enforcement. 
 

In this seminar, Felipe will present preliminary findings on this ongoing research and will discuss what are the next steps of this research, particularly with regards to transfer of technology in regional trade agreements. All feedback is welcome! 

Felipe de Andrade is a PhD researcher funded by the Research Foundation Flanders and affiliated with the University of Antwerp and KU Leuven, Belgium. He is currently a guest researcher at our Faculty with Anke Moerland. Felipe is writing his doctoral thesis on transfer of technology and intellectual property rights in the context of trade agreements and sustainable development. He has been a teaching assistant and student researcher in Brazil and Belgium, and has gathered experience in the fields of intellectual property governance, IP licensing, private international law, comparative law and open science. He has also interned at the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (2021).