PUBLISHED:October 27, 2011

A Workshop in Honor of Human Rights and Intellectual Property: Mapping the Global Interface

Friday, October 28, 2011
12:00 pm – 2:00 p.m. | Room 4047
Duke Law School


What is the relationship between human rights and intellectual property? The interface between these two fields is capturing the attention of government officials, judges, activist communities, and scholars around the world. These actors often invoke human rights as counterweights to the expansion of intellectual property rights in areas such as freedom of expression, public health, education, privacy, agriculture, and the rights of indigenous peoples. At the same time, creators and owners of intellectual property are asserting a human rights justification for the expansion of intellectual property protections.

In the new book Human Rights and Intellectual Property: Mapping the Global Interface (Cambridge University Press, 2011), Professors Laurence Helfer and Graeme Austin explore the legal, institutional, and political implications of these competing claims. Please join us for a lunchtime workshop in honor of this book – the authors will discuss their work along with a distinguished panel of experts: Professors Sean Flynn, Molly Beutz Land, Chidi Oguamanam, Ruth Okediji, and Lea Shaver.

The Center for the Study of the Public Domain presents this workshop in association with Duke Law School's Center for International & Comparative Law, Duke University's Kenan Institute for Ethics and Duke University's John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute.

For more information, contact Balfour Smith.