The Cambridge Handbook of Public-Private Partnerships, Intellectual Property Governance, and Sustainable Development (Hardcover)

Reviews

"My review" by Phillip T. - 17 March 2019

A FIRST-CLASS NEW HANDBOOK AND A GREAT INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION FOR GLOBAL COMMUNITY ECO-JARGON An appreciation by Elizabeth Robson Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers and Phillip Taylor MBE, Head of Chambers and Reviews Editor, “The Barrister” It is now recognized that the politically controversial public-private partnerships (PPPs) enjoy what the editors, Margaret Chon, Pedro Roffe and Ahmed Abdel-Latif, describe as an “increasingly prominent role in addressing global development challenges”. Cambridge University Press (CUP) have brought together 27 influential contributors on these important and developing fields of law. Do begin the book by reading the excellent Foreword by Ricardo Melendez-Oriz, the head of the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD). The mission is simply explained: “building bridges between different stakeholders” and “advancing mutually acceptable solutions to complex issues”- the team do that in spades! Throughout the work, it’s important to recall that UN agencies and other organizations rely on PPPs to “improve global health, facilitate access to scientific information, and encourage the diffusion of climate change technologies”. And it’s for this reason, say the writers, that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development highlights their centrality in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At the same time, the intellectual property dimensions and implications of these efforts remain under-examined. Through selective case studies, this detailed and comprehensive work contributes to a better understanding of the relationships between PPPs and intellectual property. The relationship is considered within a global knowledge governance framework, that includes innovation, capacity-building, technological learning, and diffusion. Linking global governance of knowledge via intellectual property to the SDGs, it is the first book to chart the activities of PPPs at this important nexus at a time of considerable change. Of course, PPPs are now an essential feature of the global development landscape and what the editors call “a fixation in development discourse and practice”. The title is a first attempt to look more closely at PPPs and IP “within a more capacious knowledge” of “governance framework”. The contributors review this relationship with public health and other fields such as education, information and communications technologies (ICTs), libraries, agriculture and climate change. We found the work quite a heavy read but, with perseverance, the end results offer a fresh insight into one of the biggest issues we face today in global development challenges. Thank you very much for this important statement on these challenges for the 21st century, and for the final conclusions in chapter 19 on the triple interface containing Margaret Chon’s findings and suggestions on future directions. This important handbook was first published in 20th September 2018.