Exploring the flexibilities in TRIPS: lessons from India's pharmaceutical patent law

This article examines the extent to which the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) permits countries to utilize two key flexibilities, i.e. the exclusion of new forms of known drugs from patent protection and local working requirements to facilitate access to affordable medicines and foster domestic pharmaceutical innovation. It examines how India has implemented and recently utilized these two key flexibilities and concludes with the view that other developing countries can equally follow the Indian model.     

Globalizing Time and Space: Temporal and Spatial Considerations in Discourses of Globalization

Globalization discourse is concerned with the effects of spatial change—changes in the shape, scale and extensity or social processes—and the effects of temporal change—particularly changes to, or away from, modernity. By drawing together both axes of change, globalization discourse suggests a way of navigating this tension. However, it is argued here that most globalization theories accord primacy to one of these axes, which results in them being conflated. As a result, globalization theories are often presented in highly systemic terms and downplay the diversity of social processes.     

Extra-territorial money laundering legislation: criminal sanction,deterrence, and the African PEP

Many of the provisions of the major international conventions on money laundering concluded by Western-dominated international agencies have rightly metamorphosed into anti-money laundering domestic criminal legislation in several African countries. It is the contention of this paper that this development has happened only haphazardly, and it has been mainly at the prodding of Western financial institutions and donor agencies. African leaders themselves have shown little enthusiasm for the raft of legislations being encouraged (and in many cases enacted) as useful tools in prosecuting cases of money laundering involving politically exposed persons (PEPs). It is further contended that the reason for this antipathy lies in the fact that although these legislations have been construed on universal principles, they have ipso-facto, been construed outside the socio-legal context of the African PEP.     

BREACH OF HUMAN RIGHTS BY NIGERIAN POLICE IN THE PERFORMANCE OF ITS FUNCTIONS＂ NEED FOR A REFORM

Nigerian Police is charged with the responsibility of upholding the law and ensuring order is kept within the polity. It is however observed that the police in carrying out its functions constantly abuses the rights of the citizens which are considered as natural rights and very fundamental to every human existence. This study aims at examining the roles of the police in Nigeria and the various ways and the rights of citizens are being encroached upon by the said police. The legal standards prescribed for the operations of Nigerian police are measured against the international standards as a parameter in order to determine the weak points of the Nigerian standards. Suggestions are therefore made on how Nigerian police can be more humane in carrying out its functions.     

The value of narrative in understanding Mongolian and Australian women's journeys of survival recovery and remaking of self,through and beyond domestic violence

In this article I argue that a narrative method and analysis may work across cultures to aid in the understanding of women's experiences of survival, recovery and remaking of self following domestic violence. This article draws on a cross-cultural narrative analysis of eleven Mongolian and eleven Australian women's stories of survival, recovery and remaking of self following domestic/intimate partner violence. The very diversity of the Mongolian and Australian women offers a case for the value of narrative method. The focus of the article is the rationale for and explanation of feminist, qualitative, cross-cultural and narrative research methods which underpinned the study. Interspersed throughout the discussion are illustrative excerpts from the women's stories which support the argument that there are some deep similarities between the experiences of Mongolian and Australian women.