Entrepreneurship in Mexico : lessons for stakeholders in New Zealand

A “neighbour” separated by 6,000 km of Pacific, Mexico is by far New Zealand’s largest trading partner in Latin America and its 15th largest overall. With two-way trade worth NZ$584 million in 2002, many Mexicans grow up on New Zealand milk powder and baby formula. Not only is Mexico’s population of 100 million a huge potential economic partner in its own right, through its network of free trade agreements, Mexico has preferential access to 860 million consumers in 32 countries covering sixty percent of the world’s GDP.

Like New Zealand, Mexico is a “New World” country open to new ideas and innovation. Also like New Zealand, Mexico is known internationally for economic reforms that have created two outward-looking, world-trading, and competitive economies. During the last 50 years, the Mexican economy has shifted away from the once dominant sectors of agriculture and mining toward more industrial activities, especially in the major urban centres of Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, and other regional centres, where entrepreneurs are concentrated. With this shift, a new class of entrepreneurs arose with the support of the government.

One of those regional centres is the State of Sinaloa, with its capital city, Culiacán. Spearheaded by a visionary government and personified by the Secretary of Economic Development, Heriberto Felix Guerra. Secretary Felix is himself restaurant entrepreneur who owns a growing chain of “concept food” restaurants in the region.

It is no accident that when New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark visited Mexican President Vicente Fox Quesada on 15 November 2001, one of the topics of conversation was the fact that very day their two countries had been benchmarked as two of the world’s most entrepreneurial countries in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2001 survey.

More germane, both countries have low-aspiration entrepreneurs who generate low levels of wealth and have low potential for growth. Both are dominated by micro-businesses that do not have high-value-added components and are not investment-ready and pre-qualified for risk capita.

This leads to the question, what can New Zealanders learn from the experience of Mexican entrepreneurship?

Middle powers and the building of regional order : Australia and South Korea compared

This article compares how two alliance partners of the United States — Australia and the Republic of Korea — are adjusting to the transition from the Cold War order in the Asia-Pacific to a new, as yet undefined regional order. As states occupying positions of privilege in the U.S.-led Cold War order, these two middle powers have engaged with the ASEAN grouping, the putative driver of the coming order, while maintaining traditional alliance commitments to the United States. This article focuses on proposals for the building of formal institutions and also other policies which can influence the formation of regional order, such as economic integration through the pursuit of free trade agreements. In examining an Asian and a non-Asian state, the article also considers how identity shapes attitudes to region and order.

Intellectual property law in Southeast Asia : Recent legislative and institutional developments

Over the last few decades, countries belonging to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) all had to revise their intellectual property systems. These revisions resulted at first from bilateral pressure of major trading partners such as the US and EU, then from the WTO-TRIPS Agreement and more recently from bilateral Free Trade Agreements. To observe the IP developments in ASEAN over this period is interesting, because this group of countries covers developed (Singapore), developing as well as least developed countries. All countries had to reform their outdated laws from the colonial era in very short time. However, in comparison to the early 1980s, important differences with regards to intellectual property policies have emerged in recent years.

This article will briefly sketch the developments in individual ASEAN countries and after that examine some broader trends in law making, IP administration, enforcement and the court system. It concludes that the ASEAN enlargement process has created a very diverse picture with regards to IP. With the fast pace of the legislative development, countries have been struggling to keep up with the creation of the institutional and administrative framework. Progress in the ASEAN harmonisation process has been limited. Statistics indicate that some of the new laws have been reasonably well received at the domestic level, while the patent sector remains foreign dominated.

IP in Asia

This presentation will start with a brief review of the first phase of this project, which focused largely on the impact on innovation of legal and institutional IP reforms in Asia triggered by the WTO Agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and by subsequent bilateral or multilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). The presentation will then show the emerging issues relevant for the second phase of the project, which in an increasingly diversified IP landscape will lie at the intersection of IP with other disciplines and other areas of law, such as competition law, media law, criminal law, human rights, environmental law and constitutional law.

Plant variety protection and traditional agricultural knowledge in Southeast Asia

This article provides an overview of the emerging plant variety protection (PVP) systems in Southeast Asia. The case studies are from countries that form part of the regional Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), mainly Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand. The focus will be on the intersection between intellectual property rights (IPRs) and popular demands for the protection of the traditional knowledge (TK) of local communities. Factors that fuelled the emergence and shaped the content of the PVP laws were the obligation to comply with art 27(3)(b) of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement), aspirations for the development of the biotechnology industry, avoidance of possible sanction under the US ‘Special 301’ procedure, Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), the role played by the International Union for the Protection of New Plant Varieties (UPOV), technical assistance from UPOV member countries, membership of international biodiversity treaties and demands from civil society organisations for protection of TK. The PVP laws that resulted present an uneasy amalgam of conventional property rights with some aspects of protection of TK. It is very likely that the local communities claiming TK rights will face legal hurdles, in as much as government agencies implementing the law will face administrative and technical complications.

The politics of the pharmaceutical industry and access to medicines : world pharmacy and India

The Pharmaceutical Industry presents one of India’s most successful stories of economic expansion and improvements in public health. Indian firms have made access to quality medicines possible and affordable in many developing countries. Indian pharmaceuticals are also exported on a large scale to the United States and other highly regulated markets. A wave of mergers, acquisitions and tie-ups point to growing integration between Indian firms and global pharma multinationals.

The Politics of the Pharmaceutical Industry and Access to Medicines: World Pharmacy and India examines this important industry from different economic, social and political perspectives. Topics covered include the implications of TRIPS-compliant intellectual property rights, the role of flexibilities under TRIPS, the market regulation system, the role of Indian firms in exporting HIV/AIDS medications to Africa, the issue of free trade agreements, the power and reach of foreign pharmaceutical multinationals in India’s domestic market, and the sustainability of India as a major generics supplier.

The pharmaceutical industry, intellectual property rights and access to medicines in Pakistan

The pharmaceutical industry in Pakistan is worth around US$ l.18 billion, with annual growth in 2010 approaching 10 per cent (Khan, 2012). There are more than 650 registered companies, including 31 multinationals, which in 2006 had a market share in value terms of 53.3 per cent, with national firms controlling the remaining 46.7 per cent (IMS Health, 2007). In 2007 medicines worth about US$100 million were exported. Medicines are a vital component of healthcare, and Pakistan spends around three-quarters of its healthcare budget on medicines (WHO, 2004). This chapter provides an overview, from a public health perspective, of the national pharmaceutical market and the development of drug policies and regulation. Pakistan adopted a Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) compliant patent regime in 2000, and the intersection between patents and public health is a central policy challenge. This chapter highlights key issues related to intellectual property, Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), and production and access to medicines.

On legal positivism's word and our 'form-of-(non-)living'

This paper is about two stories. The more reassuring one states that byestablishing that a norm is valid because of its source, not its merit, legal positivism is, in its various forms, perhaps one of the greatest achievements in Western legal theory and practice. From constitutionalism to human rights policies, from criminal to international law and free trade agreements, from contracts to torts and e-commerce, legal validity, predictability, and coherence have found their most powerful ally in positivist thought. This contribution argues that it is time for a different, neorealist story: the metaphysical, ontological and biopolitical essence of its language demonstrates that legal positivism has in fact played a fundamental role in the substitution of action with behaviour, and consequently, in the normalisation of humankind’s self-annihilating animality as post-historical and post-political ‘form-of-(non-)living.’

Interview : copyright

Discusses the estate of James Joyce, the free trade agreement, and some contemporary conundrums to do with copyright.

Doubling fish exports or garment exports : which would benefit the Fijian economy most? Evidence from a computable general equilibrium model

The need to diversify Fiji's export base has been identified as an important avenue for reducing Fiji's vulnerabilities in international trade. This paper poses the question: Doubling fish exports or garment exports: which would be most beneficial for the Fijian economy? To achieve the goal of this paper, the computable general equilibrium model is used, this being at the forefront of research on 'impact studies'. The main finding is that when garment exports and fish exports are doubled, the benefits to the Fijian economy are greater from garment exports, suggesting that the latter has stronger linkages with the rest of the economy. On the basis of this finding, policymakers should divert resources towards sustaining the garment industry whose future is uncertain due to expiring trade agreements and unstable economic policies.

Weighty matters in footy

World soccer authorities are locked in a clash with the European Commission, over whether the same labour laws should apply to footballers as to any other workers. The European Commission says the current system of player transfers contravenes the free trade of labour, and must be reformed. Soccer writer ROY HAY explains why the lengthy negotiations to reform soccer's transfer system remain unresolved.

Harmonised procurement policy environment - identifying key themes towards the development of a conceptual model

Capital works procurement and its regulatory policy environment within a country can be complex entities. For example, by virtue of Australia’s governmental division between the Commonwealth, states and local jurisdictions and the associated procurement networks and responsibilities at each level, the tendering process is often convoluted. There are four inter-related key themes identified in the literature in relation to procurement disharmony, including decentralisation, risk & risk mitigation, free trade & competition, and tendering costs. This paper defines and discusses these key areas of conflict that adversely impact upon the business environments of industry through a literature review, policy analysis and consultation with capital works procurement stakeholders. The aim of this national study is to identify policy differences between jurisdictions in Australia, and ascertain whether those differences are a barrier to productivity and innovation. This research forms an element of a broader investigation with an aim of developing efficient, effective and nationally harmonised procurement systems.

Creating an Innovation Exception? Copyright Law as the Infrastructure for Innovation

Innovation is clearly essential for economic growth, cultural development and personal autonomy. Yet the relationship between innovation and copyright law in Australia is uncertain and perhaps overly restrictive. After the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement Australia now has a copyright regime that can broadly be
described as a lock up and lock out scheme. Whilst the Australian Government has paid lip service to innovation the Australian Copyright Act, which provides the essential legal infrastructure for innovation, now privileges the rights of owners over the interests of the public. In particular, the Copyright Act neglects to create a specific exception for technology innovation. If there is to be some coherence in Australia
thinking with regards to innovation and copyright policy it is crucial that such an exception be created. Arguably, it is possible that such an exception can withstand the scrutiny of the three step test. At present the only ‘exception’ that can be said to exist is in the form of the limits of the authorisation liability provisions or the ISP safe harbour scheme. Australian copyright law needs something more substantial than that
and needs for there to be a clear hierarchy between the exceptions and the liability provisions.