The international Trojan Horse – investor to state dispute settlements and the spill over effects for the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC)

Abstract

There is a great deal of uncertainty in the realm of international intellectual property law, with the EU and the US negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a trade agreement that aims to remove trade barriers across different economic sectors to increase trade between the EU and the US while embedding investor to state dispute settlement mechanisms into the agreement.1 The TTIP will have spill over effects on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, Australia, the Asian sub-continent and the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) which will be the main focus of this article. The impact of the TTIP on the GCC will require a fresh analysis of their intellectual property laws and international trade agreements (Pratap, J. 2013. Proposed US-EU trade deal may impact business in GCC: report. Accessed 21 June 2016. http://www.bilaterals.org/?proposed-us-eu-trade-deal-may#sthash.aXZVR17g.dpuf). As the US and EU finalise the TTIP, there is also the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that could impact third party countries. The article will analyse both the TTIP and TTP in regard to the potential ramifications of the agreements on developing Islamic states like the GCC states in respect of intellectual property protection, with particular emphasis on investor to state dispute settlements.