The TPP and Critical Legal Pluralism: The Impact on Global Internet Users

• In Event: Top Papers in Communication Law and Policy 2017

Abstract

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has been widely criticized for its overbearing approach to harmonizing trade policies within its 11 member nations. The chapter on intellectual property, perhaps more than others, has been the specific target of such criticism by activist groups that fear for the autonomy of individuals across the world who are facing the possibility of living under increasingly neoliberal deregulation (EFF.org). This paper seeks to legitimize the concern of such activist groups by framing the IP Chapter’s discourse in the theory Critical Legal Pluralism (CLP), the goal of which is to challenge its authors’ understanding of the TPP’s implications and to suggest a way forward in which numerous, overlapping (and sometimes messy) sets of rules and laws can coexist to the benefit of individual internet users. CLP is contrasted with Global Legal Pluralism, the dominant logic in the current legislative push to have the TPP passed.

Author

• Ian Dunham, Rutgers U