The Concept of Humanitarian Intervention in the Context of Constitutional and Legal Policy of the State

Current events in the world have exposed new threats to humanity i. e. nuclear terrorism, artificial grain famine, new forms of ecocide, and biocide. All this significantly changes the priorities of international politics and the constitutional as well as the legal policy of nation-states, where natural disasters and the global COVID-19 pandemic have faded into insignificance, and the issue of re-sovereignization is gaining relevance. The article provides a thorough analysis of the essence of the concept of humanitarian intervention. The discussion is based on the analysis of the consequences of humanitarian intervention on the fate of nation-states and their citizens. The article aims to substantiate the harmfulness of the concept of humanitarian intervention for the sovereignty of nation-states and natural human rights. It is noted that state sovereignty does not contradict the nature of human rights. On the contrary, humanitarian intervention allows certain aggressive political actors to violate the sovereignty of the nation-state and harm a person's constitutional and natural rights, first of all, to peaceful coexistence, life, health, and human dignity. It is argued that modern international law needs to be modernized, which should redefine the concepts of "genocide", "ecocide", "biocide", etc. The concept of humanitarian intervention should be openly recognized as not meeting the expectations of the modern international community.

Manufacturing Innovation

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) The annual Global Innovation Index released in September 2021 ranked China twelfth, surpassing developed economies such as Japan, Israel, and Canada and raising fears in the United States amidst sluggish growth in North America and strong growth in the Asia Pacific region.1 Interestingly, the United States government responded by boycotting the Beijing Olympic Games, citing human rights abuses as the main reason.2 A tech war between China and the United States brewed beneath the diplomatic rancor over the attendance at the Olympic Games. Part I documents how the United States has assisted China's tech and intellectual property domination through President Nixon's historic visit to China, giving China Most Favorite Nation (MFN) status and ascending China to the World Trade Organization (WTO). [...]under Deng Xiaoping's leadership during the reform period, China rapidly developed its special economic zones (SEZs), laying the foundation for subsequent tech innovation and production. [...]broadcasting, telecommunications, office machines, computers, integrated circuits, and cell phones are among China's notable exports to the world.9 China dominates in commodities and raw materials, exporting refined petroleum, cotton, plywood, and tea.10 For agricultural products, China occupies the perch as the world's largest producer. Shenzhen rose as the largest among the four.18 Shenzhen, a small fishing locale in the southern part of China's southern province, Guangdong, served as the pioneer of Deng Xiaoping's embrace of economic reforms.19 A market-oriented economy took root in Shenzhen, allowing foreign companies and entities from Hong Kong and Macau to operate and allowing Chinese talents the freedom to leave their hometowns and move into the SEZs.20 Cheap labor proved to be another significant factor facilitating China's rise as a global manufacturer.21 In the 1980s, multinational corporations from Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, as well as domestic Chinese companies, opened their factories in the SEZs and other cities in China to take advantage of the cheap and plentiful labor force.22 Indeed, when Deng Xiaoping began his pilot SEZs, China's young workers who wished to lift themselves out of poverty descended into the economic zones in search of better opportunities.23 Shenzhen grew from a population of 59,000 in 1980 to a population of 12,357,000 in 2020.24 The new migrants became the workers, participants, and stakeholders in the global manufacturing frontier.25 Because of the abundance of cheap labor, manufacturers in China have no difficulty keeping production prices low and pleasing consumers and businesses worldwide.26 China's currency manipulation is another factor propelling China to its domination in global manufacturing.27 The United States Congress attempted numerous times to introduce legislation to combat China's currency manipulation.28 China artificially devalued its currency through government control of the exchange rate and refused to let the Chinese Renminbi (RMB) float.29 Despite strong criticisms from the United States, China refuses to allow its currency to freely float.30 China's currency manipulations, according to critics, caused the widening of trade deficits between the United States and China.31 China's currency manipulation allows products to be manufactured at lower prices, hampering competitors and thereafter replacing them.32 In order to cope with China's currency practices, United States manufacturers facing their own existential crises must decide to either outsource jobs overseas or face large risks, including financial ruin.33 The United States lost millions of manufacturing jobs due to massive job outsourcing as the trade deficits between the United States and China continued to persist.34 Geopolitically, in shaping post-Cold-War powers, the United States decided to assist China in its transformation from a poverty-stricken country to a global manufacturer.

Limitation of rights in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic: a view from Kosovo's Constitutional Court's 'shaky' jurisprudence

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments across the globe to take infection-control actions by and large unforeseen and unforeseeable in their constitutional frameworks. Several measures forcing restrictions on travel, business operations, labour, healthcare and/or the education system have characterised public policy in most of them. A fair number of those restrictions adopted in the form of government or legislature decisions are labelled as 'lockdown measures'. This article examines two recent cases ruled upon by the Constitutional Court of Kosovo (CCK or Court), whose primary aim was to pronounce on whether the Kosovo government's lockdown measures were compatible with the criteria authorising a limitation of fundamental rights. These two cases present an outstandingly activist attitude of the Court in controlling government behaviour in times of a pandemic outbreak, by primarily questioning the state's negative obligations in the face of freedom of movement, right to private and family life, and freedom of assembly;whereas positive obligations of the state with regard to the right to life and its associated right, the right to health, were neglected altogether. The article concludes that the mechanical interpretation which the two Court cases drew neither contributes to a richer substantive human rights protection, nor functionally elevates the concept of human rights in times of pandemic. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of International Journal of Human Rights is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Herders Mobility, Food Security and Covid-19 Pandemic Challenges during Lockdown in Nigeria

Climate change is one of the cores of the herders' movement in Nigeria. Some other variable is the classification of the Fulanis as indigenous peoples that have no specific abode of their own;they roam around looking for water and foliage for their animals. During the dry season, they move towards the southern part of Nigeria where they would find foliage and water for their animals because of their status under international law. A notion that in a bid to look for food for their animals, these herders sometimes feed their animals with grown corn, cassava, millet, sweet potato and even yam of the sedentary farmers. One of the geneses of food insecurity in many communities of the southern part of Nigeria. Food availability, affordability and accessibility in the country was compromised in 2020 due to these challenges by the urban dwellers which was compromised due to the activities of mobile herders. With general lockdown in Nigeria, many farmers were unable to go to farm while the Fulanis who were hardly affected by lockdown had their field-days in feeding their animals on crops planted by small scale farmers, the only source of food security in the country. The core of this paper is to interrogate Fulanis mobility as indigenous peoples based on relevant international law and its impact on small-scale farmers' sources of income and food availability for the teeming population of Nigeria. We contextualised this based on the COVID-19 pandemic that restricts the movement of people between March and December 2020. We conclude that the rights of the indigenous peoples at the domestic level need further interrogation to create an atmosphere of peaceful co-existence through aversion of herders-farmers clashes that envelope southern Nigeria.

The Right to Property Taking Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Seriously

The right to property is part of International Human Rights Law (IHRL). However, the right is conspicuously missing from some fundamental treaties, and there are important inconsistencies in its interpretation by regional and global human rights bodies. In light of the indeterminacy and polysemy of IHRL in relation to property, this paper articulates a proposal to rethink this right taking Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ESCR) seriously. The proposal contains four propositions. Firstly, property is a human right. Secondly, it includes private property as one of its forms, but this is not the only one. Thirdly, property has a social function. And fourthly, as a matter of proportionality, fulfilling ESCR is one of the most important objectives that may justify the limitation of private property.

International Law and Digital Disease Surveillance in Pandemics: On the Margins of Regulation

The COVID-19 pandemic elicited a surge in the use of digital tools to replace "classic” manual disease tracking and contact tracing across individuals. The main technical reason is based on the disease surveillance needs imposed by the magnitude of the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus since 2020, particularly how these needs overwhelmed governments around the world. Such developments led to stark variations across countries in terms of legal approaches towards the use of digital tools, including self-reporting software and mobile phone apps, for both disease tracking and contact tracing. Against this backdrop, in this article I highlight some of the normative challenges posed by the digitalization of disease surveillance, underscoring its almost non-existent regulation under international law. I look back at the historical emergence of the epidemiological principles underlying this procedure, by referring to John Snow's trailblazing work in cholera control. I emphasize how the COVID-19 pandemic prompted both technical and normative shifts related to the digitalization of these procedures. Furthermore, I refer to some of the overarching obstacles for deploying international law to tackle future tensions between the public health rationale for digitalized disease tracking and contact tracing, on the one hand, and normative concerns directly related to their legality, on the other hand. Lastly, I put forward conclusions in light of the current juncture of international health law reforms, and how they so far display limited potential to herald structural changes concerning the legality of the use of digital tools in disease surveillance.

The Death of Law

This is a talk about the decline and fall of constitutional law, an overarching characteristic of the new millennium. I focus on the period from the end of the Cold War—once described as the end of history—to what I call the "Second Cold War” beginning in the second decade of this century and having escalated in the proxy war in Ukraine. The Second Cold War is also characterized by an aborted cooptation of China through the World Trade Organization (to tame China's seemingly unstoppable ascension to global supremacy) as well as a state of permanent emergency.

Regulatory Competition, Coordination and Polity Convergence in the Covid Ecosystemic Crisis: A Policy Approach

The paper briefly sketches different "adaptations” possible to address the Covid crisis and then advances three possible avenues for future policy analysis of Covid-related measures, each of these avenues being based on a "conjecture”, respectively an evolutionary, a critical, and a cosmopolitan, and conjecture. The evolutionary conjecture implies regulatory transplants, the critical conjecture elicits competition of Covid-related measures, and the cosmopolitan conjecture assumes coordination of policies. The paper discusses how these conjectures based on pre-Covid literature could explain the regulatory dynamics and then asserts that growing evidence shows that regulatory measures appear to naturally lead to a "polity convergence” based on a common core of "Covid-biopower” and "Covid-biopolitics”. This convergence defies the initial expectations that the fragmented reactions to the Covid crisis could be explained by using the traditional research tools and also poses unprecedented critical issues that demand an expansion of the horizon of policy research.

International cooperation, production side emissions and environmental sustainability

PurposeRising greenhouse gases have contributed to global warming above the pre-industrial levels with detrimental effects on world climatic patterns. Extreme weather has inflicted drastic impacts, including loss of lives and livelihoods and economic disruption. However, collective international cooperation in adopting greenhouse gas emission mitigating measures can translate into long-run beneficial effects of improving environmental quality. This study examines if international environmental cooperation among the world's top ten polluters can reduce production side emissions.Design/methodology/approachThe panel estimation procedure was applied to data from ten top polluting countries from 2000 to 2019.FindingsThe results revealed a statistically significant inverse association between a nation's commitments to international environmental treaties and carbon dioxide emissions. Other than confirming the environmental Kuznets curve effect, industrial intensification, international trade and law rule are other strong correlations of carbon dioxide emissions.Research limitations/implicationsThe main policy implication is the urgency for the leaders of the world's top ten polluters to actively cooperate in developing and implementing new production-side carbon emission measures as well as the implementation and enforcement of existing international treaties to minimize further environmental damage and let the countries in the lower ranks of carbon emissions to enjoy the long-run benefits of the decarbonized world.Originality/valueThis study makes a new contribution to the environmental research literature by unfolding how collective global cooperation on environmental challenges can help reduce environmental damage in a coherent analytical framework.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2022-0598

SYRIA-Everybody's War: The Politics of Aid in the Syria Crisis

Gabiam reviews Everybody's War: The Politics of Aid in the Syria Crisis edited by Jehan Bseiso, Michiel Hofman, and Jonathan Whittall.

A Review of An Open World: How America Can Win the Contest for Twenty-First-Century Order by Rebecca Lissner and Mira Rapp-Hooper

The authors stress that both economic and military investments will be required to counter China's integration of statecraft and industry.1 It is further suggested that a selective procurement of allies within the Asian-Pacific region is necessary to counter Chinese economic dominance, military aggression, and coercive practices.2 An Open World suggests that the United States should look to build on existing relationships within trade and security cooperatives in the Indo-Pacific region and bolster the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, known as the Quad, to become a formal alliance that projects a robust military presence to counter Chinese aggression and encroachment within the South China Sea. [...]the authors point out the current dearth of expertise, talent, and diplomatic finesse that exists within the United States Department of State. In November 2020, the four members participated in a joint naval exercise meant to improve sea readiness for their fleets.6 This exercise was followed by a virtual meeting the following March and the establishment of working groups to tackle challenges such as supply-chain resilience and COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution.7 If these working groups are the extent of the Quad's influence, then the United States needs to seek other alliances to combat China's aggressive economic and military tactics. Coupling public and private sector goals While this type of partnership with private firms is promising, the authors admit to the widening gap between the national security interests of the public sector and the industrial mission of private corporations, which seems to weaken their argument.

Documents on Democracy

In a country where every ninth person is suffering food shortage, a country where more than one million civilians have fled their homes and villages and have nowhere to live, a country where everyone has lost a family member or a friend to hunger, exposure, war, landmines, arbitrary killings, or the COVID pandemic the military did their utmost to exacerbate, we are all the victims of the military's crimes. There appears to be a parallel trend of an increased number and length of imprisonments occurring through criminal justice processes, suggesting that the focus of deprivation of liberty has shifted towards imprisonment, on purported grounds of counter-terrorism and counter-"extremism." The systems of arbitrary detention and related patterns of abuse in VETC and other detention facilities come against the backdrop of broader discrimination against members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim minorities based on perceived security threats emanating from individual members of these groups. The Government holds the primary duty to ensure that all laws and policies are brought into compliance with international human rights law and to promptly investigate any allegations of human rights violations, to ensure accountability for perpetrators and to provide redress to victims.

Long COVID and children's rights

This policy note calls for the recognition of long COVID as a children's rights issue in the UK. While children have been affected by school closures and lockdown restrictions throughout the pandemic, the relatively low rates of COVID-related hospitalizations and deaths among children have led to their de-prioritization in efforts to reduce the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Yet infection rates are extremely high among children in the UK, particularly secondary school students, and early studies suggest that many are not recovering for up to a year after infection. Prolonged illness following infection, 'long COVID', has implications for children's rights to education, health, and a private and family life, among others. By extension, children have a right to have their best interests taken into consideration in policy-making processes relating to long COVID. The policy note thus argues that we must recognize the significance of long COVID in children and, upon this basis, call upon the State to address its human rights implications.

‘Creabimus!' Creatively re-thinking the corporation and the social contract

This article rethinks the corporation and ‘the social contract with business' for the post-pandemic era. It uses a double historical orientation centred on the turbulence of the 1930s in Europe and America to insist on the company's relationship with government, and to explore transformations in the social contract now needed to socialise and ecologise global business. One part of this history looks forward, from Adolf Berle's modern corporation to the neoliberal corporation and regulatory governance. The article criticises a transformation of regulatory priorities in this era, closely analysing the shift to procedural mandates and questioning the corporate law tactic of ‘enlightening' companies. The second part looks backwards to industrial modernism and Walter Rathenau in Germany in the interwar era, and also earlier (the late 1890s), to salvage a different understanding of the company and social contract, built around more constructivist visions of law, government and social consciousness. This part of the article is insistent about the metaphysical aspects of law and about developing law's equalising powers around corporate impactfulness and injustice. It promotes ‘thought' about collectivism (John Keynes) and the legal and regulatory recalibration that is needed to confront certain amassing challenges of the present. The article makes institutional transformation about shifting onto a different historical axis, whereby we might re-learn collectivist ambitions around the company that co-evolves with law and government, live to the public interest. It proposes a new social contract with business and a new regulatory modus involving law's ‘Creabimus' and ‘regulating dangerously' for situations of widely adverse corporate impactfulness.

Refugees and Immigration Policies

This article looks at the challenges faced in handling the influx of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees seeking protection, and for others a livelihood. However, at the rate that it had been going in the past, Global North countries found it difficult to handle the sudden influx. Bottlenecks occurred at the borders, and some were kept in detention facilities (US) and others in camps (European Union [EU]). There has been an abject failure in upholding international law, which according to the 1951 Geneva Conventions and 1967 Additional Protocol stipulate, countries are obligated to not conduct refoulement upon those seeking asylum if it is proven that they will not be safe, nor return to any other country where their safety is compromised. What complicates the matter is the current Covid-19 pandemic, as countries are exploiting the circumstances, violating international law in the name of protecting their citizens from the "spread” of Covid-19. A closer look at what America and EU have done to address both issues is done. The article concludes with suggestions on how to reform immigration policy based on the scholarly research found. © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

DUE DILIGENCE IN PANDEMIC: STATE ACCOUNTABILITY FOR COVID-19 UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has tested the response capacity of the international community. This article analyses the due diligence principle and the various international legal instruments that restate it in an assessment of the possible actions that states could have taken to avoid or, at least, contain the initial outbreak of the pandemic.

Access to Medicine in Developing Countries: Elevating State Obligations Over Corporate Profit

This paper investigates the divergence between the objectives of the state in ensuring citizens' right to health and the profit-maximization objective of pharmaceutical corporations in relation to, access to, and supply of medicine. This divergence is pertinent given both the rising cost of medicines and unmet needs, particularly in developing countries. This paper analyses the correlation between pharmaceutical corporations' profit drive and the state's welfare obligation. There is a need to bridge the gap between business and human rights, which can be achieved by combining the concepts of "business ethical responsibility" and corporations' contributions to "common good" with the jurisprudence on the right to health. This is imperative in view of the impact of the business of pharmaceutical corporations on vulnerable populations, particularly in, but not limited to, developing countries.

Digital Money & Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) – New Opportunity, New Challenge

The power of new technology may, nevertheless, now lead to a fundamental restructuring of banking and financial markets themselves, particularly with the emergence of new private and public digital coins and digital market platforms.1 Markets have been subject to massive continuing changes and advances, which have substantially reformed banking and financial services and products.2 Centrally controlled government, or central bank, markets can now enjoy the technological capability to replace more traditional legacy private markets and services.3 The advent of digital systems has had a major impact on all aspects of banking and finance. Almost 30,000 private digital coins have since been created.9 The value of this market exceeded $1 trillion in the first quarter of 2021 and then grew to $2.06 trillion later in the year.10 Similarly, the valuation of large technology firms, such as BigTech leaders, including Apple and Microsoft, also rose to over $2 trillion.11 While the value of these coins has suffered from substantial variability and volatility, this suffering can be limited or managed through the use of stablecoins, which tie their value to another cryptocurrency, fiat currency, or commodity, with the most notable example being Facebook's Libra coin (now known as Diem), which was launched in June 2019.12 New forms of digital payment systems have also emerged, with over three billion account holders now using different forms of payment applications and electronic wallets.13 Private "CoinTech" has then evolved in competition with PayTech and other forms of financial technology (FinTech) applications (AppTech), including decentralised finance (DeFi), decentralised exchanges (DEXs), and most recently non-fungible tokens (NFTs).14 The most dramatic innovation within these markets may, nevertheless, be the adoption of new forms of official central bank digital currency (CBDC) or digital government coin (GovCoin or StateCoin).15 This has been referred to as the "new incarnation of money," which could lead to a major switch in power from individuals to the state, geopolitical disruption, and adjustment of capital allocation.16 This has to be treated with a combination of "optimism[ ] and humility," with central banks described as moving from being "the aristocrats of finance to its labourers. Central banks had to support the financial system over a decade ago in the wreckage of the global financial crisis beginning in 2008-2009 and then following the coronavirus crisis in 2020-2021.24 This intervention could be taken further forward with central banks effectively nationalising private money and banking systems through a process of highly centralised technological transformation and metamorphosis.25 This could be partly driven by efficiency and stability arguments and accompanied by a decline in physical coin and banknote use, although probably more simply due to the potential perceived loss of control over markets and market function and stability either to private operators or other governments that could otherwise ensue.26 This could result in fundamental change and adjustment. Metal coinage was introduced with the Lydian Stater around 650 BC, which was made from an alloy of gold and silver, with a large number of different types of metal coinage having been created subsequently, especially in new Greek city-states.33 The Persians would introduce gold Darics and silver Sigloi, with the Romans developing the gold Aureus, silver Denarius, and copper Sestertius.34 The Chinese created early forms of knife and tool coins around 1,122-221 BC during the Zhou dynasty,35 with later paper Feiqian (618-907), or "flying cash," during the Tang dynasty,36 and Jiaozi notes (960-1279) during the Song Dynasty.37 The Carolingian Pound was introduced around 742-814 by Charlemagne or Charles the Great (748814).38 The English silver penny and pound sterling date from around 757796.39 The Florence Florin and the Venetian Ducal were introduced around 1252 and 1284.40 The Spanish Real and Peso date from 1350 and 1366.41 The Dutch Guilder and then Thaler, Mark, and Franc emerged between 1252 and 1360.42 The United States dollar was created between 1776 and 1792,43 with the European Euro between 1999 and 2 002.44 The modern Chinese Renminbi dates from 1948.45 Aristotle explained the functions of money in terms of acting as a unit of account, medium of exchange, and store of value, which has remained the principal formulation in economics over time.46 Aristotle, nevertheless, separately highlighted the importance of valuation in his Nicomachean Ethics.41 The two core functions of money, for the purposes of this text, are restated in terms of valuation and value, with care having to be exercised in considering the three economic functions of money in law.48 This division is also reflected in Joseph Schumpeter's distinction between money acting as both a mensuratum (means of measurement) and mensura (the thing measured).49 Because money is a universal item of financial value, the principal uses or applications of money can be explained in terms of valuation, savings or deposit, lending or credit, payment or exchange, investment or return, and risk or loss management.50 A massive edifice of writing has subsequently been erected to examine the subject of money over

China's Belt and Road: Where to Now?

In a recent address, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed a huge expansion of the BRI, sustained through dialogue, openness, and innovation among BRI participants.2 In place of confrontation, he envisaged cooperation, social and economic development, and bolstered intercultural exchanges.3 China's revitalized BRI would unshackle the transborder movement of capital, enhance infrastructure relationships, and enrich the productivity of BRI traffic globally.4 President Xi pronounced that wellfinanced and supported initiatives "along that path" would protect vital interests both domestically and globally.5 China's present dilemma is in ensuring that it expands its stature as the largest destination for foreign inbound investment (FDI) to offset the risk of losing access to foreign markets. Some developing states are avoiding the road because of fear of incurring debt loads.17 Others that are already on the road are limiting funding for roadwork to avoid increasing debts.18 Chinese banks are imposing higher interest rates on loans and providing shorter periods to repay them.19 The Group of Seven wealthiest Western states are constructing competitor roads and alternative sources of funding and terms of payment, highlighted by the EU's recently announced Global Gateway.20 American banks are competing strategically to counter the resourcing provided by the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank to fund BRI infrastructure development.21 Stern detractors depict China as constructing a controlled highway along which it restricts access, participation, and the right and manner of exit. In their portrayal, China's BRI operates as a directed highway along which it dictates travel according to laws of the road of its ordination and autocratic application.22 Far from eliciting cooperation from participating states and foreign investors, China's BRI plan, according to them, is to erode consent over the direction, length, and safety of the highway.23 At their most generous, critics envisage that China will reformulate Western liberal treaties of trade and investment into instruments of its self-empowerment that are formally attired in legal apparel.24 These criticisms compound already challenging economic and political roadblocks to BRI construction. The direction, pace, and scale of the BRI will be contingent on how China, in deliberation with its partner states, redresses functional and legal blockages on that road.32 China will be scrutinized on how well it can sustain its BRI as the global trailblazer that nurtures productivity along an infrastructure pathway that traverses target states with often distinct but also shifting needs.33 China will also be scrutinized on how well it can manage fluctuating costs and unexpected roadblocks along its BRI, resist fervent BRI competition from the West, and dissuade state partners from withdrawing.

IP Waivers in a Pandemic: Great in Theory, Wrong in Practice

[...]granting sweeping IP waivers can ultimately impede incentivization in a time where such innovation is needed most. "25 And, as a result, innovation would slow, and consumers would suffer. [...]it is no wonder why governments can-and often do- effectively promote innovation through IPRs.26 A. IP and International Law As advancements in transportation made it possible to export and import goods outside one's own country, the need for a multilateral IP treaty became necessary to protect IPRs across borders. [...]on March 20, 1883, the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property was formed.27 While it has been revised many times since its formation, the treaty's objective has remained unchanged: to harmonize how each nation treated other nations when seeking protection for their industrial property.28 Only five years after the Paris Convention, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works was formed.29 Like the Paris Convention, the Berne Convention focuses on international harmonization, but goes a step further by providing minimum standards for copyright law.30 However, because the Paris and Berne Conventions are both non-self-executing treaties,31 they only have legal effects within a member state if, and when, countries implemented them through their own laws.32 As a result, adoption of the two treaties was slow, and their effects less profound. "38 Unlike the prior Berne and Paris treaties, TRIPS is unique because WTO membership is a "package deal," meaning that members cannot just selectively choose which agreements to implement and which to ignore.39 B. TRIPS and the Pharmaceutical Industry Tensions have long existed between IPRs in the biopharmaceutical industry and public health concerns in LMICs.40 Before TRIPS, some countries, such as India and Brazil, did not permit patents on medicine;rather, they only permitted drug companies to patent the processes used to create them.41 This meant generic alternatives could enter the market right away, keeping prices affordable for consumers.42 After TRIPS was formed, WTO member states were required to provide IPRs to innovators for product patents43 with a minimum term length of 20 years.44 This was necessary because it allowed biopharmaceutical companies to recover many of the R&D costs they would otherwise lose to generic companies.45 And, as technology has advanced, R&D costs have only skyrocketed.46 Between 2009 and 2018, the estimated median R&D cost per individual drug was $985 million.47 However, giving the pharmaceutical industry blanket monopolies for every patented drug would exacerbate the lack of access in LMICs, as name brand drugs-without generic alternatives-can be priced at monopolistic price points.48 Thus, in an attempt to find the right balance between promoting R&D into new drugs and furthering access to existing drugs, the TRIPS agreement includes two exceptions outlined in Articles 30 and 31.