Ruth L. Okediji, History Lessons for the WIPO Development Agenda, in The Development Agenda: Global Intellectual Property and Developing Countries (Neil Weinstock Netanel ed., 2008).
Abstract: This chapter explores the technology-related focus of the IP-development linkage and outlines WIPO's role in the initial development paradigm, which prevailed from 1964 to 2004 when a proposal for a WIPO Development Agenda was first submitted. It then examines the WIPO Development Agenda in light of this history and identifies possible paradigm shifts discernible both in the structure of the Agenda and in preliminary considerations regarding its implementation. Finally, the chapter suggests a number of ways to interpret the WIPO Development Agenda and reflects briefly on how these different “faces” of the Agenda might inform WIPO's institutional role in responding to a spectrum of development interests in an era of rapid technological transformation.