Problems and Politics of IPRS Protection from WIPO to WTO: The Case Study of Bangladesh

The protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) from World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to World Trade Organization (WTO) faces the question of suitability for lPRs-owning developed countries and IPRs-using developing and least developed countries (LDC). This article accumulates arguments put forward by IPRs owners and users in different negotiations that give births to different regimes from WIPO to WTO. It shows that all of the arguments are raised from the countries' individualistic viewpoints which protect their own interests. While doing so, this article examines the relevance of these arguments on the basis of indisputable suitability to the circumstances. The article shows that the IPRs owners follow the powerbased-bargaining strategies to coerce developing and LDC members into agreeing to the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). The article also argues that in the bargaining, developing and least developed countries possess little understanding about TRIPs and hence they fail to provide meaningful input in support of their developmental needs as regards agriculture, public health, economic development, and so on. To exemplify such situations, this article scrutinizes international treaties from WIPO to WTO in relation to developmental needs of developing and LDC members like Bangladesh and finds out the treaty-intricacies in fitting in local legislations.