Summary and Conclusion

This chapter first outlined the key concept of “compliance” which will be used in this study to analyse China’s interactions with the TRIPS Agreement. Then the main theories of compliance which have emerged from international law and international relations literature in recent decades were discussed. Previous studies of compliance in China, particularly in relation to IP commitments, were also considered. Overall, previous studies into China’s compliance with international commitments, including research focusing on IP protection, have tended to mostly focus on factors specific to China without fully considering the nature of the obligations involved. Equally, existing theories of compliance often focus on characteristics of the specific agreement without allowance for the individual country.

Therefore, this study will apply a comprehensive model of compliance to China’s IP protection under the TRIPS Agreement. This model will allow for consideration of factors both specific to China, as well as considering the nature of the TRIPS Agreement itself and the nature of the IP protection problem. Then, this comprehensive model of compliance will be applied to China’s compliance with the TRIPS Agreement in stages: firstly in Chap. 3, the background context of the TRIPS Agreement itself will be examined, to evaluate if there are factors which are not specific to China which generally affect compliance with its provisions. Then, the methodology used in this study will be fully explained and justified in Chap. 4. Part II will then focus on applying this model to the specific context of China’s TRIPS compliance by not only examining the shortterm changes made at the time of accession in 2001, but also the longer term changes up to 15 years later.