Historically, the use of legal frameworks to claim proprietary rights in the products of agricultural science was limited to the private sector. Public institutions, including CGIAR, treated their creations as the common heritage of humankind. Scientific, economic, and legal changes unsettled this public–private balance in the 1980s, provoking a reimagination of the role of intellectual property in research and development. Three distinct theories about how CGIAR should respond to the global expansion of intellectual property in agriculture emerged. Maximalists embraced proprietary legal claims, adaptationists advocated for cautious accommodation, and rejectionists viewed intellectual property as ancillary to the CGIAR mission. This chapter traces the history of intellectual property debates within CGIAR from 1990 to 2020, arguing that over time, the adaptationist approach prevailed as institutional governance structures developed. Although current policies permit each CGIAR center to embrace rejectionism or maximalism to a certain extent, the rejectionist theory has been marginalized at the system level, while a global capitalist approach to agricultural science has taken root.

The question of how to balance free data flows and national policy objectives, especially data privacy and security, is key to advancing the benefits of the digital economy. After establishing that new digital technologies have further integrated physical and digital activities, and thus, more and more of our social interactions are being sensed and datafied, Chapter 6 argues that innovative regulatory approaches are needed to respond to the impact of big data analytics on existing privacy and cybersecurity regimes. At the crossroads, where multistakeholderism meets multilateralism, the roles of the public and private sectors should be reconfigured for a datafied world. Looking to the future, rapid technological developments and market changes call for further public–private convergence in data governance, allowing both public authorities and private actors to jointly reshape the norms of cross-border data flows. Under such an umbrella, the appropriate role of multilateral, state-based norm-setting in Internet governance includes the oversight of the balance between the free flow of data and other legitimate public policies, as well as engagement in the coordination of international standards.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused unprecedented loss as it swept through humanity wiping out 6.69 million human lives. It is now estimated that 660 million of the world’s population was infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the novel coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China, and then rapidly spread across continents. This is our story of how we came together during an incredibly challenging time to fight a common enemy. Times of crisis can often serve as strong drivers of creativity and innovation. It was during the crisis of the pandemic that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx®) initiative to accelerate the translation of innovation into high-performing diagnostic tests. This book chronicles the power of innovating during a crisis, the compression of product launch timelines from over five years to under a year, the birth of creative financing ventures, the commitment of entrepreneurs, and the agility and resourcefulness of government institutions as they adapted to meet the imminent needs of the pandemic and serve the community. It is our sincere hope that the lessons learned from the trenches will improve our nation’s ability to fight the next pandemic.

Describes the rationale for, and approach to, regulation of the water industry. Considers the effects of restructuring, the impacts of private participation in water, and the use of formal water markets

A question frequently arises in the field of human rights as to why the rights do not become real, even when they are recognized in legal frameworks. More specifically, how to convert economic, social and cultural rights into concrete reality? Why do not the legal frameworks translate into equality, changing the circumstances of those living in vulnerable conditions? Or, more specifically, what are the conditions that favour or hinder the implementation of ESCR?