Grievances toward the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) have persisted for decades. Recently, these tensions have been further intensified by COVID-19 and the ongoing US-China trade war. The dominant view underscores how firms from the Global North exercise their intellectual property rights in the Global South and their exclusive legal actions hinder others’ access to scientific knowledge. My book challenges this view by showing how political, legal, and regulatory institutions promote global access to scientific knowledge while protecting intellectual property rights. Using game-theoretic models, quantitative analysis, and qualitative methods, the book illustrates how scientific knowledge diffuses without redistributing the wealth created by new knowledge, highlighting the role of governance institutions in this process.

For additional details, please find the first chapter draft here.