infoJustice

How to Promote Research and Education at the Global Level? Takeaways From Our Panel Discussion

[Teresa Nobre] COMMUNIA and Wikimedia Deutschland held a panel discussion on February 15th to discuss whether the new mandatory exceptions in the EU Copyright Directive could serve as a model to solve some of the most pressing international-level problems around education and research. The event started with Marco Giorello, the Head of the Copyright Unit at DG CONNECT of the European Commission, explaining the reasons for introducing mandatory exceptions for education and research purposes at the EU level (from min. 8:55 to min. 20:50). Marco pointed out that both research and education were at the forefront of the Commissions’ discussions on the modernization of the copyright system.

The WTO TRIPS Waiver and Essential Security Rights in 2022

[Dr. Alexander Beyleveld] Almost two years have passed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we are still far from bringing the pandemic to an end. One of the main reasons for this is the fact that large vaccine inequities remain worldwide. In order to address this problem, a large subset of World Trade Organization (WTO) members are in favour of waiving certain obligations contained in the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement). Against this backdrop, this article contemplates the legal necessity of such a waiver given that Article 73 of the TRIPS Agreement contains essential security exceptions which may render the obligations in question inapplicable under the interpretation that the pandemic affects law and public order interests.