Intellectual Property and TCEs

摘要

This title is an exhaustively researched and well-intentioned study that highlights the varying methods, both useful and faltering, in which various countries have grappled to protect of traditional cultural expressions (TCEs) via several incarnations of intellectual property. It gingerly skims through the meandering abortive attempts, originating since the 1960s, to reach an international accord to protect such TCEs; as in the case of most such multilateral efforts, other than the usual documented studies, platitudinous proposals and pious plans of action, there is precious little concrete achievement let alone consensus on whether TCEs deserve protection and if so, in what form.