This chapter explores the impact of intellectual property on increasing income and wealth inequality internationally and domestically, with a focus on law and legal methodology. It begins by setting the scene and background of international intellectual property protection. The chapter then examines the potential of taking into account considerations of income and wealth distribution in the process of interpreting intellectual property rules and explores the potential of the principle of equity. It turns to the overall balance of rights and obligations from an angle of fostering investment in innovation and proposes to recognize creative imitation in the overall equation. It also suggests recalibrating rules on the duration of patents, copyright, trademarks, and trade secret protection. The latter is not subject to limitation and time and may thus contribute to unjustified economic rents detrimental to human investment. This chapter suggests to introduce ceilings of protection and refer to the principle of unjust enrichment in conceptualizing these concerns.

In light of growing geopolitical tensions between China and the West, the chapter focuses on areas of persistently shared interests and common concerns of humankind. Climate change, the protection of biodiversity and pandemics cannot be addressed in isolation but require common efforts and international cooperation in the dissemination of technologies and knowledge, despite ideological differences. The paper stresses the importance of existing WTO law and sets a trade-related agenda for these areas. Finally, it submits that a future principle of Common Concern of Humankind offers guidance in finding common ground for multilateral negotiations on trade, competition and investment in the WTO. It is capable of protecting the interests of a global community increasingly caught in big-power rivalry.

Parallel importation and reimportation amount to the most important and unresolved classical problem of intellectual property protection within the multilateral trading system of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The welfare effects of restricting trade due to national or regional exhaustion of intellectual property rights are controversially discussed, and empirical evidence is not conclusive. Facts differ in different sectors of the global economy. The law is unsettled in squaring the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement and in particular the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT 1994). This chapter explores the relationship between these agreements in international law. It concludes that WTO law undermines the operation of national and regional exhaustion. These two doctrines are overbroad and cannot apply across the board. Other less intrusive trade policy instruments are available to address legitimate concerns raised in the context of parallel importation and reimportation of original products. The multilateral trading system in result is simply and essentially based upon exhaustion while allowing for sectorial control and limitations of parallel trading by other means.

Throughout the history of mankind, migration has been a constant companion. Today, migration has become a major policy issue in the wake of globalization, enhanced international trade in goods and services and capital flows. Divergences in social and economic development and income disparities increased migration flows mainly of economic migrants for which, unlike political refugees, established multilateral disciplines and rules that do not properly exist in international law and relations people lived outside their country of origin. Enhanced migration flows due to a multitude of factors, such as war, climate and in economic disparities are at the root of current populism and international tensions. It bears to the potential to threat international peace and security, and thus potentially qualifies as a common concern of humankind. The paper expounds the potential of the principle of Common Concern of Humankind in structuring future developments of international law of migration, enhancing duties to cooperate, compliance and obligations to act in the field. It is submitted that Common Concern of Humankind offers a new narrative, stressing migration as as common task of humankind which no longer can be dealt with in isolation by nation states.

Tracing the background and origins of common concern of humankind, this chapter elaborates the legal framework and normative components of a future principle of Common Concern of Humankind. While its contours have remained vague and undetermined so far, we suggest that a future principle could emerge in a process of claims and responses, consisting of essentially three dimensions. Problems actually or potentially posing a threat to international peace and stability - and thus in need to be addressed - entail obligations to consult and cooperate, beyond current disciplines of general public international law. It entails obligations to implement international obligations and commitments, in addition to domestic law which in the field, may deploy extraterritorial effects in addressing the shared problem at hand. Finally, the principle obliges states to act and take countermeasures, subject to proportionality, in response to free-riding and evasive states. The principle of Common Concern is not limited to international law, but may also deploy comparable effects within states and federations in addressing pressing shared problems. It has the potential to become an important building block of transnational federalism and multi-level governance and to assist restructuring different areas of public international law seeking greater cooperation and commitments in addressing pressing and shared regulatory needs.