Eric Otieno - dissertation project
“Fix the Patent Laws!”
A postcolonial reappraisal of the Intellectual Property Rights Regime
Since its foundation in 1995, the World Trade organisation’s (WTO) activities have been accompanied by protest and resistance. Even so, the unbridled trade liberalisation it champions has since become biopolitical: Access to Medicine is mediated by WTO governance under the TRIPS agreement, a framework regulating (T)rade (R)elated aspects of (I)ntellectual (P)roperty right(S).
However, little research has been conducted on the correlation of the aforementioned protest with institutional reform processes. This project adds to existing research by combining Global Political Economy analysis and Postcolonial Theory to understand how Protest Movements in South Africa have informed (ongoing) institutional reform processes at the WTO.
The strategies, methods and demands of the aforementioned protest movements are examined and compared with institutional reform outcomes at the WTO. The analysis will be based on primary qualitative research with proponents of previous and ongoing protest movements on this matter. It is argued here that protest and resistance in the Global South have been key in facilitating institutional reform at the WTO. It is Protest movements that pressured governments to push for an interpretation of the TRIPS agreement that favours universal access to medicine in the run up to the Doha Round.
By closely examining the role of South African protest and resistance in advancing reform at the WTO, the global intellectual property framework is revisited as a regime of capitalist knowledge-management. The prospect of transforming its influence on public health, intellectual property and International trade by agents in the Global South is tested in practical and material terms.
Publications
a) Articles (Peer-Reviewed)
(Forthcoming): “Reclaiming Our Time” in African Studies - Conversations from the perspective of the Black Studies Movement in Germany. In Kessi S. et al. (eds.): “Decolonizing the Academy” Critical African Studies Special Issue (with Peggy Piesche and Maisha Auma).
b) Reviews
2020: ‘Everywhere’s a here, isn’t it?’ Necropolitical power and its circular tendencies. Postcolonial Studies https://doi.org/10.1080/13688790.2020.1762277
2019: Afrotopia (Felwine Sarr). Berlin: Matthes & Seitz 2019, 175 Seiten, in Peripherie Nr. 153 (1-2019), S. 120-122. https://doi.org/10.3224/ peripherie.v39i1.12
c) Blogs & Newspaper Articles
2020: Kein Patentrezept. In Analyse & Kritik, Nr. 660. Schwerpunkt Medikamente. Online: https://wirkommen.akweb.de/ausgaben/660/kein-patentrezept/
2020: Access delayed is access denied. Africa is a Country. Online: https://africasacountry.com/2020/06/access-delayed-is-access-denied
Talks & Lectures
Concerning Epistemic Violence: Epistemische Gewalt und Dekolonisierung der Universität im Rahmen des studentisch organisiertenSeminars: "Dekolonisierung der Universität/fb05/typo3/" Institut für Philosophie, Universität Hannover. Juni 2020
Postkolonialismus und Globale Gesundheit im Rahmen derVorlesungsreihe: Einführung in die Globale Gesundheit. Universitätsklinik Frankfurt am Main. October 2019.
African Regional Organisations in the Global Political Economy.El Congreso Formativo en Desarrollo Sostenible. Universidad Valladolid (ES). October 2019
After Eurocentrism. Die Zukunft des Wissens. Studierendenkonferenz Wissen Herrschaft und Kritik. Universität Mainz Juli 2019.
Patienten vs. Patenten: Das Recht auf Profit und Globale Gesundheit. Auftakt der Vortragsreihe “Lessons in Health”. Universität Marburg. November 2018.
Translations
(GER>ENG) Wolfgang Sachs (2017): The Sustainable Development Goals and Laudato si’: varieties of Post-Development?, Third World Quarterly, 38:12, 2573-2587, DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2017.1350822
(GER>ENG) Race, Class and Gender at German Universities: A Round-Table Discussion, Encarnación Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, Kien Nghi Ha, Jan Hutta, Emily Ngubia Kessé, Mike Laufenberg and Lars Schmitt (forthcoming)./fb05/typo3/
Teaching
a) Seminar - Introduction to Postcolonial Studies Summer 2020 (Held in German, co-taught with Anne Reiff).
b) Global Health Summer School, Berlin
A returning annual series of two lectures at the Global Health Summer School since 2018 organized by the Charité Institute for Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health Economics, the German Platform for Global Health und IPPNW Germany.