47 2 Copyright Harmonisation in the Asian Pacifc Region: Weaving the Peoples Together? Lida Ayoubi 1 1 Introduction In 2015, Professor Adrian Sterling proposed an ‘Asian Pacifc Copyright Code’ that would harmonise the copyright laws of Asian Pacifc countries that adopt the code. 2 Te Code was proposed within the framework of the Asian Pacifc Copyright Association (APCA) established in 2011 with members throughout the region. 3 Tis chapter argues that the proposed draft Code, as it stands, does not adequately take the interests of indigenous peoples and the impact of regional copyright harmonisation on those interests into account. Regional, as well as international, copyright harmonisation has proven to be a complex issue. Te Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) 1994 was arguably the most 1 Copyright © 2018 Lida Ayoubi. Lecturer in Law, Auckland University of Technology (AUT). Te author would like to thank the AUT Faculty of Business, Economics and Law for provision of funding that facilitated the author’s research. Te author also wishes to acknowledge the research assistance of Mariyam Sheeneez and Sarah Lim and the valuable comments of the editors of this volume on the earlier drafts of this chapter. 2 See Adrian Sterling ‘Asian Pacifc Copyright Code’ in this volume. 3 Asian Pacifc Copyright Association www.apcacopyright.org [APCA].