Intellectual Property and Human Rights 2.0

Written in celebration of the seventieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this article calls for greater methodological engagement to refine existing human rights approaches to intellectual property and to devise new approaches to advance the promotion and protection of human rights in the intellectual property area. This article begins by briefly recapturing the past two decades of scholarship on intellectual property and human rights. It documents the progress scholars have made in this intersectional area. The article then draws on the latest research on human rights methods and methodology to explore whether and how we can take the academic discourse to the next level.

It highlights three dominant research methods that have been used in this intersectional area: comparative methods, quantitative assessments, and contextual analyses. The second half of this article identifies the contributions a robust discourse on intellectual property and human rights can make to the future development of the intellectual property regime, the human rights regime, and the interface between these two regimes. Responding to critics and skeptics in the intellectual property field, the article concludes by explaining why human rights discussions in the intellectual property area will provide important benefits to the future development of the intellectual property regime, especially in relation to developing countries.