Contours of an International Instrument on Limitations and Exceptions: Global Intellectual Property and Developing Countr

This chapter examines policy options and modalities for framing an international instrument on limitations and exceptions to copyright within the treaty obligations of the current international copyright system. It considers this international copyright acquis as the general starting point and evaluates options for the design of such an instrument, including questions of political sustainability and institutional home. Section I sketches the rationales for a multilateral approach to the question of limitations and exceptions. Section II explores flexibilities inside the international copyright acquis, reviews the three-step test, and assesses its import for the validity of a proposed international instrument on L&Es, particularly given the expansion of the test in the TRIPS Agreement and the interpretive jurisprudence of the WTO dispute panels. Finally, section III sets out in preliminary fashion the basic contours of a multilateral instrument on L&Es.