Dr. Amaka Vanni

Profile

I am a Senior Lecturer in IP Law and Program Manager for the LLM Intellectual Property Law Program at the School of Law, University of Leeds where I have been based since December 2020. My academic work focuses on research, teaching, and policy engagement in the fields of international intellectual property law and international economic law. I am an Associate Fellow of the UK’s Higher Education Academy and a member of both the Centre for Business Law and Practice (CBLP) and Centre for Law and Social Justice (LSJ).

My first monograph, ‘Patent Games in the Global South: Pharmaceutical Patent Law-Making in Brazil, India, and Nigeria’ (Hart, 2020), won the 2018 SIEL-Hart prize for international Economic Law. This text presents a thorough analysis of patent law-making in Brazil, India, and Nigeria by critically interrogating how these countries work around the imposition of strict IP laws under the auspices of the WTO’s TRIPS Agreement. It also analyses the role of social networks and explores how the relationships between a variety of actors alter the framing, and subsequently response to, the national implementation of the international IP regime. The monograph has received critical acclaim from eminent scholars in international economic law (broadly defined) and positively reviewed by the Journal of International Economic Law and the Modern Law Review.

My second book, an edited volume titled ‘Intellectual Property Law and Access to Medicines TRIPS Agreement, Health, and Pharmaceuticals’ (Routledge 2021, co-edited with Prof Srividya Ragavan, School of Law, Texas A & M University, USA) maps the 25 years of the TRIPS Agreement. The book comprehensively addresses the distinct shift in medicine access debates and global pharmaceutical patent regime through an interdisciplinary lens. The book was selected by the WIPO Standing Committee on Patent Law as part of its Review of Existing Research on Patent and Access to Medical Product and Health Technologies. It was also nominated as a finalist for the best IP Book of the year by the widely read blog, IPKat.

I have conducted extensive fieldwork across countries, including Brazil, India, and Nigeria, and held visiting scholar positions at academic and governmental institutions. I was a visiting PhD scholar at the Working Group on Intellectual Property (GTPI/REBRIP) in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), a visiting researcher at the Centre for Study of Law and Governance at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi (India), and a visiting PhD fellow at the WTO Department at the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Trade, Investment and Industry in Abuja (Nigeria). Drawing on my expertise in international trade, I bridge research, policy, and practice. I have provided technical advice to Nigeria's Federal Ministry of Trade, Investment and Industry and served as a policy analyst for the World Bank's International Development Association.

I serve on the editorial boards of the TWAIL Review and the African Journal of International Economic Law, and I am a contributing editor at the AfronomicsLaw Blog. I am a member of the Steering Committee of the IEL Collective, a community of scholars and practitioners where I mentor early-career scholars as part of the IEL Collective Early Career mentorship program. Additionally, I am a project lead on the New Frontiers in International Development Finance (NeF-DeF) network led by Prof. Celine Tan at the University of Warwick School of Law.

From 2020-2022, I served as the president of the African International Economic Law Network (AfIELN).

Responsibilities

• Programme Manager, LLM IP Law

Research interests

My primary area of expertise is global IP governance, especially concerning the pharmaceutical patents and its impacts on access to medicines and medical technologies, global health, vaccine contract/financing, and philanthro-capitalism. I explore how IP laws shape global access to knowledge, innovation, and development, particularly in the Global South. My research adopts an interdisciplinary approach to IP law, critically examining its historical and contemporary impact on society. Grounded in critical legal theories, particularly Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), history, and critical race theory. As a result, my work focuses on the constitutive power of international economic law, norms, and practices to affect social relations and everyday life, especially in the developing world where this impact is felt more starkly. 

Qualifications

• PhD (University of Warwick)
• LLM International Economic Law (University of Warwick)
• BA International Relations and Politics

Professional memberships

• Society of International Economic Law.
• African International Economic Law Network
• Socio-Legal Studies Association
• Society of Legal Scholars (SLS)

Student education

Contemporary Issues in Intellectual Property: Health, Food and Biotechnology, Patent Law and Copyright Law

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Business Law and Practice
• Centre for Law and Social Justice