Peter K. Yu, the Kern Family Chair in Intellectual Property Law and director of the Intellectual Property Law Center at Drake University Law School, will join U.N. Special Rapporteur in the Field of Cultural Rights Farida Shaheed and other leading human rights experts in the “Patent Regimes and the Right to Science and Culture” workshop at Yale Law School on Wednesday, Oct. 29.
The workshop is particularly timely in view of the U.N. Special Rapporteur’s upcoming final report of her mandate on the topic of intellectual property regimes and the right to science and culture. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has also voted to develop a general comment on the right “[t]o enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications,” a right recognized in both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Yu is currently co-editing a book titled “Developing Human Rights Approaches to Intellectual Property” with Molly Land, a professor of law and human rights at the University of Connecticut. He is also leading a multi-year project that examines the relationship between intellectual property standards and the right to science. This project is developed under the auspices of the Committee on International Intellectual Property of the American Branch of the International Law Association. Yu chairs the committee and serves on the association’s executive committee.
The weekend before the Yale workshop, Yu will deliver a presentation on the human rights basis of internet user rights during the 2014 International Law Weekend at Fordham University School of Law. The presentation draws on his ongoing research and advocacy work on copyright law reform in Hong Kong. At this annual meeting, he will also chair the panel on “Copyright and Human Rights in the Digital Environment.”
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Yu is a world-renowned expert in international intellectual property law. He serves as the founding director of the Drake Intellectual Property Law Center, which, for the past six years, has been ranked by peers among the top 25 intellectual property law programs in the United States. The Center also features a uniquely designed LL.M./M.J. Program in Global Intellectual Property Law, which aims to train transnational intellectual property lawyers and professionals.
Yu is an award-winning teacher and a prolific scholar. He is the author or editor of five books and more than 100 law review articles and book chapters. He has delivered lectures and presentations in more than 25 countries, and his scholarly publications have appeared in 10 languages. He currently serves as the general editor of the peer-reviewed WIPO Journal, published by the U.N. World Intellectual Property Organization.