Intellectual Property

Following the conclusion of the four-part Symposium on COVID-19 and International Economic Law in the Global South, Afronomicslaw.org is pleased to announce three follow-up webinars to continue the conversation

The shortcomings of the current legal and policy framework does not mean that responses to COVID19 should be lacking. Instead, there is adequate room for responses as we learn lessons and take notes to do better. The best way to move policy and law is to ensure that it is constantly reviewed to make sure they serve their purpose.

The current international, regional and national architecture of Intellectual Property law confers privileges to foreign transitional interest blocks in order to profit from patents by extending, trademarks, copyrights and so on for longer periods of time. This legal enclave diminishes the possibility of developing technologies, including diagnostics, medicines, vaccines and other medical supplies vital to treating patients infected by COVID-19 and it hampers efforts to distribute them in a timely manner to all the countries currently affected by the pandemic. However, the creative elements of a new global system are emerging now, one characterized by coordination between WIPO, WTO and WHO.

It is clear that at both national and international level there is work being done to revise copyright law for digital contexts and that the pandemic has impressed upon us how important such work is. There are no suitable limitations and exceptions in South Africa’s copyright law to meet emergency demands and existing licensing agreements were not equal to the task either. Hence the need for the emergency measures outlined above. So, to bring my musings to a close, in my view Copyright Law is not supportive of emergency remote teaching in its current form and reform is urgently needed.

On the 24th of March 2020, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) announced a US$3 billion facility to help its member countries weather the economic and health impacts of Covid-19. In this interview, Prof Ben Oramah, President Afreximbank, discusses this pandemic facility, the African Continental Free Trade Area, (AfCFTA) and more.

Welcome to this symposium on COVID-19 and International Economic Law in the Global South. The essays in this symposium came from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, the Caribbean, North America and Latin America. This symposium will last for a full four weeks because of the large number of good quality submissions we accepted.

The book titled Multi-Sided Music Platforms and the Law: Copyright, Law and Policy in Africa is a timely contribution to literature in this era, with regards to the music boom in Nigeria and other parts of Africa and the existence of music platforms for entertainment as well as commercial purposes. There is a voluminous scholarship in this book on law and multi-sided platforms generally on one hand and copyright law specifically on another. The author focused on the legal and regulatory issues that arise from the use of copyright-protected content by multi-sided platforms in digital advertising.

According to Professor Caroline Ncube in the foreword, this book is an important and timely contribution to the discussion of music platforms and is the first work that considers multi-sided platforms from the perspectives of copyright, competition and privacy under South African and Nigerian laws.

Students who study law at the National University of Lesotho (NUL) participate in various moot court competitions involving a wide array of legal fields. One example is the John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition. NUL has taken part in this competition on four occasions- twice making it into the international final round. There are several challenges to teaching International Economic Law (IEL) at NUL (these have been traversed in an earlier piece). However, participation in moot court competitions has proved to be a novel way of overcoming some of these challenges.

The Mandela Institute is a leading university centre undertaking research, policy development, and capacity building at the intersection between economics and law. Its mandate is to advance the field of economic regulation.