The World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is an intercontinental agreement that establishes minimum criteria for numerous categories of intellectual property (IP).
- Copyright – This refers to the legal right to control the production and selling of a book, play, film, photograph, or piece of music. Copyright protection, however, extends to expressions and not to ideas, procedures, methods of operation, or any mathematical concepts.
- Geographical indications – Geographical indications are defined as indications that identify a good as originating in the territory of a Member or a region or locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation, or other characteristics of the good are essentially attributable to its geographical origin.
- Industrial designs – The agreement obliges members to provide for the protection (for at least 10 years) of independently created industrial designs that are new or original.
- Integrated circuit layout-designs – WTO defines layout designs as the three-dimensional disposition, however, expressed, of the elements, at least one of which is an active element, and of some or all of the interconnections of an integrated circuit, or such a three-dimensional disposition prepared for an integrated circuit intended for manufacture.
Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMS)
- TRIMS, which was negotiated during the Uruguay Round, applies to measures that affect goods trade.
- This agreement specifies that no Member shall take any action that is banned by GATT Article III (national treatment) or Article XI (quantitative restrictions).
- As a result, the members will not enact any policy that discriminates against foreign products or leads to quantitative restrictions.
Agreement on Agriculture – AoA
Designed to remove trade barriers and encourage transparent market access and integration of global markets, AoA stands on 3 pillars:
Domestic Support, i.e., subsidies such as guaranteed minimum price or input subsidies, which are direct and specific to a product. This can be divided into:
- Green Box – Subsidies that are not or least market distorting. It includes measures such as income-support payments, safety-net programs, payments under environmental programs, and agricultural research and development subsidies. In the case of developing countries, special treatment is provided in respect of governmental stockholding schemes for food security purposes and subsidized food prices for urban and rural poor. The US has exploited this opportunity by decoupling subsidies (non-trade distorting subsidies) from outputs and financing research & development of agriculture.
- Blue Box – These production-limiting subsidies cover payments based on acreage, yield, or number of livestock in a base year. The government is given room to fix the ‘targets price’ if the ‘market prices’ is lower than the farm prices. The EU has been actively using this method.
- Amber Box – Those are trade-distorting subsidies that need to be curbed. They contain a category of domestic support that is scheduled for reduction based on a formula called the “Aggregate Measure of Support” (AMS). This refers to the money spent by governments on agricultural production, except for those contained in the Blue Box, Green Box, and ‘de minimis.’
Agreement on Textiles & Clothing – ATC
The Multi-Fibre Agreement governed the global textile trade until the Uruguay Round. This framework for bilateral agreements or unilateral actions established quotas, limiting imports into countries whose domestic industries were facing serious harm from rapidly increasing imports. Since MFA was not in tandem with the principles of GATT, it was replaced by the Agreement on Textiles on 1st January 1995.
Sanitary & Phyto-Sanitary Measures
As a result of the Uruguay Round, the SPS agreement sets out the basic rules for food safety and animal and plant health standards. It allows countries to set their own standards based on scientific regulations. But they should be in force only to the extent that is necessary to protect human, animal, or plant life or health. Also, they should not capriciously or unjustifiably discriminate between countries with identical or similar conditions. The Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement (TBT) tries to ensure that regulations, standards, testing, and certification procedures do not create superfluous obstacles to trade. The most common complaints as far as SPS & TBT measures are concerned are that importing countries are not abiding by international standards. For example, in recent times, developed regions like the USA & EU have reduced the limits of pesticides in agriculture. This has had an impact on the export of India’s agro-products like tea & basmati rice. Another frequent grievance relates to long delays in completing risk assessments or allowing imports.
Read about the India-EU BTIA here.
