States must respect the obligations set forth in international conventions whenever legislative measures fall within the ambit of the relevant instruments. It follows that no such duty exists where legislation is not covered by international norms. The question thus arises how to draw the line between those scenarios. Furthermore, it can be asked whether the borderline is a hard and fast one, or whether it is pervious to a residue of basic obligations persisting beyond strictly defined limits. For intellectual property rights, the issue is of relevance in two situations: first, if rights adjacent to intellectual property rights are conceptualised as rights sui generis; and second, if legislation falling within the ambit of international conventions goes beyond the minimum standards prescribed therein. This paper investigates whether and to what extent Paris and TRIPS-Plus legislation, in the form of sui generis rights and over-obligatory standards, actually enjoy dispense from otherwise mandatory commitments.

This chapter examines critically the role of technical assistance in the implementation and expansion of intellectual property (IP) norms in Africa, using the protection of plant variety as an illustrative example. It focuses mainly on technical assistance from the World Intellectual Property Organization and the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants. Relying on Third World Approaches to International Law scholarship and doctrine, it traces the origins of IP technical assistance and its role in the institution of IP norms and protection in Africa. The chapter further discusses the fragmented and complex regime of IP laws in Africa, and finally, the place of technical assistance in the burgeoning plant variety regime on the continent. The central claim is that technical assistance should be seen as a vector of ideas and practices that have progressively led to the systemic integration of African countries into the international IP system (“adherence overdrive”) and the curious case of countries that inadvertently neglect the flexibilities inherent in the IP system when formulating national laws and policy (“compliance overdrive”).