Larry Helfer has received an International Research Incubator grant from the Center for the Americas at Vanderbilt to support an interdisciplinary research project on “The Politics of Intellectual Property Disputes in the Andean Community.”
The project’s purpose is to identify and analyze the legal and political factors that have generated an explosion of intellectual property litigation before the Andean Court of Justice. The $10,000 seed-grant will enable Professor Helfer and two co-authors, Karen Alter of Northwestern University’s Department of Political Science and Maria Florencia Guerzovich, a doctoral candidate in Political Science at Northwestern University, to travel to one or more Andean countries during 2007 to interview international and domestic judges, government officials, attorneys and non-governmental organizations.
The Center for the Americas at Vanderbilt investigates the cultural, economic and political interactions among the countries and territories of the Western Hemisphere and between the region and other parts of the world. Using its research, the Center develops and helps sustain lasting partnerships that solve problems of importance to the Americas.
CFA International Incubators are part of the Center’s three-stage method for encouraging and facilitating collaborative research between Vanderbilt faculty and students and their counterparts in other institutions and countries in the Americas.