The Notion of Acceptance of Law in the Implementation of Rules: The WTO TRIPS Agreement in Lesotho

Abstract

The TRIPs Agreement came into force in 1995, as an annex to the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO), the WTO Agreement.1 By ratifying the WTO Agreement, members automatically and necessarily became bound by agreements that came with the formation agreement. As a result, all WTO member states became bound to implement the TRIPs Agreement. The TRIPs Agreement is the prevailing international instrument on intellectual property (IP) and it sets out the minimum IP standard for all WTO member states. Lesotho became a member of the WTO in 1995. Despite this, the country has up to now failed to implement the agreement into the national IP law. No steps have as yet been taken to commence the implementation. Lesotho's national IP law is therefore still below the prevailing international standard set by TRIPs. This paper looks at challenges of implementation of the agreement in the context of Lesotho. The notion of acceptance of law is applied here as a test for successful implementation. This test is derived from Hart's theory of law or jurisprudence on what constitutes a municipal legal system and it looks at how the law is perceived by those responsible for implementation. Various factors that affect or influence acceptance are outlined and discussed. It is shown that Lesotho fails the test of