The current, prevailing narrative on the WIPO-WTO relationship refers to “forum-shifting”. The idea is that developed countries moved from WIPO to WTO in order to obtain stronger IP protection at the international level by joining trade talks with IP negotiations. As a result, WTO would have become the main international forum for trade-related IP issues. This paper argues that the forum-shifting narrative, despite its merits, may fail to catch the complexity of WIPO-WTO relationship. Moreover, long-standing issues, as well as recent developments in trade and IP, demonstrate that the two Organizations have been characterized by continuity and constitute in reality interdependent, complementary fora. This is not to deny the differences existing between WIPO and WTO nor to discard the merits of the forum-shifting theory. Nonetheless, it is argued, it is time to move beyond it in order to grasp the implications of the WIPO-WTO relationship towards future international economic governance.

当前关于 WIPO-WTO 关系的流行说法是指“论坛转移”。这个想法是发达国家从 WIPO 转向 WTO，以便通过加入贸易谈判和知识产权谈判，在国际层面获得更强有力的知识产权保护。因此，世贸组织将成为与贸易相关的知识产权问题的主要国际论坛。本文认为，尽管有其优点，但改变论坛的叙述可能未能抓住 WIPO-WTO 关系的复杂性。此外，长期存在的问题以及贸易和知识产权方面的近期发展表明，这两个组织的特点是连续性，实际上构成了相互依​​存、互补的论坛。这并不是要否认 WIPO 和 WTO 之间存在的差异，也不是要摒弃论坛转移理论的优点。尽管如此，有人认为，