Can you tell us about your academic career and more specifically at the Washington College of Law of the American University?

For the last 19 years, I have been on the faculty of American University’s Washington College of Law teaching courses on the intersection of intellectual property, trade law, and human rights. I also directed the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property (PIJIP), where I designed and managed a wide variety of research and advocacy projects to promote the public interest in intellectual property and information law, and I coordinated the law school’s intellectual property academic programme. The projects I launched and managed included the Global Expert Network on Copyright User Rights, an academic network of over 100 copyright professors from over 80 countries around the world, and the Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest, a member organisation of over 1,000 public interest minded academics and professionals. I continue to serve as the editor-in-chief of Infojustice.org, a leading public interest law and policy blog, as a visiting scholar at the University of Amsterdam’s Institute for Information Law, and as a senior research associate at the University of Cape Town’s Intellectual Property Unit.

You are coordinating a major project on knowledge governance. Can you tell us more about this project?

For the last four years, I have been funded by the Arcadia Foundation to help build the capacity of public interest stakeholders and developing country governments to engage in international policy forums at the intersection of copyright law and the rights of researchers and educators to access and use digital materials in their work. The project began before the rise of so-called artificial intelligence (AI), which has drawn increased attention to this important area. AI companies and researchers use the same tools. As governments consider regulating the uses of digital materials by large technology companies in AI, they need to be critically attuned to the impact of those regulations on academic, research and education institutions and practices. Our project produces research, sponsors teaching programmes, and provides technical assistance to governments and public interest stakeholders in forums such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) where international policy on these issues are being shaped.
 

Why did you decide to bring this project to the Institute?

When we decided to build a Geneva-based office for our work, the Graduate Institute was our first choice for a local partner. The history of the Institute as a pioneering provider of research and training for diplomats and development officials provides a firm foundation for the support of our goals in these areas. The Institute is well known among our stakeholders and the governments we work with. Its location in the heart of the Geneva policymaking institutions, including being a block from WIPO’s offices, is ideal for the integration of our work into the policy community. And we are pleased to help grow the Institute’s capacity in intellectual property law. Several of the Institute’s alumnae·i, including Kamil Idris, the former Director General of WIPO, are leaders in intellectual property law and policy. Other centres at the Institute, including the Global Health Centre, work on issues at the intersection of intellectual property and the public interest. But this is the first centre at the Institute to be focused more particularly on the full dimensions of the topic.
 

Learn more about the programme. 

Register to attend the launch of the Centre on Knowledge Governance 

This article was published in Globe #36, the Graduate Institute Review.