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Progress and Progressive Intellectual Property Treaties: New Issues, New Actors

Delivered by Professor Ruth L. Okediji, Jeremiah Smith, Jr.,Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Professor Okediji’s lecture will focus on how The Intellectual Property (IP) Clause of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to grant exclusive rights to authors and inventors to promote scientific and cultural progress. But some of the most important developments in intellectual property law in the twenty-first century derive from international treaty-making processes that attempt to include diverse interests, peoples, and communities in the global innovation system. This lecture explores the rise of “progressive” IP treaties that are responsive to the interests of creators and inventors such as Indigenous People, local communities, and other non-traditional actors. It highlights tensions and tradeoffs between contemporary views of the IP Clause and the political economy of international IP law-making that has drawn new actors to the global bargaining table, with surprising results for U.S. IP law and politics.

About Professor Ruth L. Okediji

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Ruth L. Okediji is the Jeremiah Smith Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and Co-Director of Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Professor Okediji teaches contracts, international intellectual property (IP), patents, copyright, Biblical Law, and courses on Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Professor Okediji was named one of the 50 most influential figures in IP by Managing IP and received the 2019 Public Knowledge IP3 Award. She is a 2023 recipient of the Barry Prize for Distinguished Intellectual Achievement from the American Academy of Sciences and Letters, and a 2024 Herchel Smith Fellow at the University of Cambridge, England. Her latest book, Traditional Knowledge and Modern Justice, is forthcoming in 2026.

About the Blaine Sloan Lecture on International Law

The Blaine Sloan Lecture on International Law honors F. Blaine Sloan for developing the international law studies program at Pace. A member of the United Nations Legal Office for three decades and Director of the General Legal Division, Professor Sloan has contributed significantly to the development of private and public international law. He represented the Secretary General at the 1978 UN Conference on the Carriage of Goods by Sea; at the sessions from 1969–1978 of the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL); and at the 1966–1978 sessions of the Legal Sub-Committee on the Peaceful uses of Outer Space. His UN service involved him in the organization’s work on Vietnam, relief for Palestinian refugees, peacekeeping in the Middle East, the UN Commission on Korea, and as Legal Advisor to Security Council sessions in Africa and Latin America.

This event is free and open to the public. Please register below.

This is an in person event. 1 PD credit will be awarded to students who attend.