The Origins of the Human Rights Framework for Intellectual Property

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY COLD WAR STRUCTURES, P. Sean Morris, ed., Brill | Nijhoff, 2025, Forthcoming

Texas A&M University School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 25-24

15 Pages Posted: 27 Jan 2025

See all articles by Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

Texas A&M University School of Law

Date Written: January 27, 2025

Abstract

The longstanding effort to create a human rights framework for intellectual property began with the development of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which was adopted on December 10, 1948, and recently celebrated its seventy-fifth anniversary. Article 27 of the UDHR covers three distinctive human rights: (1) the right to take part in cultural life (right to culture); (2) the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications (right to science); and (3) the right to the protection of interests resulting from intellectual productions. Less than two decades later, these rights have been transcribed into enforceable international treaty obligations in article 15(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Although these three rights did not receive much scholarly and policy attention until at least the late 1990s, the past three decades have seen a burgeoning literature on the interplay between intellectual property and human rights.

Written for a volume focusing on intellectual property developments from 1946 to 1980, this chapter explores the following questions: What can the origin of the human rights framework for intellectual property tell us about the ongoing and future challenges in the intellectual property arena? Did the UDHR drafters anticipate these challenges? Regardless of whether they did or did not, have they created a human rights framework capable of addressing these challenges?

To answer these questions, this chapter briefly recounts the origin of the human rights framework initially laid out in article 27 of the UDHR and further developed by article 15(1) of the ICESCR and subsequent interpretive documents. The chapter then examines the design of this framework in relation to two new intellectual property developments that the UDHR drafters have not anticipated: (1) the adoption of the WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge in May 2024; and (2) the emerging challenges posed by the wide public use of AI. This chapter concludes with three takeaways drawn from the human rights framework laid out in article 27 of the UDHR and from the structure and normative meaning of the three rights protected by this provision.

Suggested Citation

Yu, Peter K., The Origins of the Human Rights Framework for Intellectual Property (January 27, 2025). INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY COLD WAR STRUCTURES, P. Sean Morris, ed., Brill | Nijhoff, 2025, Forthcoming, Texas A&M University School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 25-24, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5112852 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5112852

Peter K. Yu (Contact Author)

Texas A&M University School of Law ( email )

1515 Commerce St.
Fort Worth, TX Tarrant County 76102
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.peteryu.com/

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