Intellectual Property Ordering Beyond Borders

This chapter examines critically the role of technical assistance in the implementation and expansion of intellectual property (IP) norms in Africa, using the protection of plant variety as an illustrative example. It focuses mainly on technical assistance from the World Intellectual Property Organization and the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants. Relying on Third World Approaches to International Law scholarship and doctrine, it traces the origins of IP technical assistance and its role in the institution of IP norms and protection in Africa. The chapter further discusses the fragmented and complex regime of IP laws in Africa, and finally, the place of technical assistance in the burgeoning plant variety regime on the continent. The central claim is that technical assistance should be seen as a vector of ideas and practices that have progressively led to the systemic integration of African countries into the international IP system (“adherence overdrive”) and the curious case of countries that inadvertently neglect the flexibilities inherent in the IP system when formulating national laws and policy (“compliance overdrive”).