The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision granting summary judgment in favor of the US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) regarding the propriety of imposing a restriction.
The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on Wednesday deploring ‘in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine’ in violation of the UN Charter and demanding that Russia ‘immediately cease its use of force’ against eastern European country. UNIFEED
17 February 2021
Author: Naoise McDonagh, University of Adelaide
The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) 2014 Trade Facilitation Agreement is the only significant multilateral agreement it has concluded since its inception in 1995. Against that success, significant failures stand out. The inability to complete the Doha Development Round launched in 2001 and the failure to curb fishing subsidies despite the decimation of global fish stocks indicates that multilateralism is floundering.
The growth in plurilateral agreements adds to that view and raises questions about the WTO’s future. Plurilateralism refers to trade and investment negotiations between three or more countries, but fewer than all WTO members. Plurilaterals can occur inside the WTO, where non-signatories still receive the benefits through the most-favoured-nation requirement. The 1996 Information Technology Agreement is one early example. Issue-specific WTO plurilaterals, such as the e-commerce negotiations, are beco