“Larry, Congratulations!  This [the ITSSD-Whitehead School Internship Program] is a benchmark - Not only for you and ITSSD, but for all of us devoting our lives to the advancement of private property rights.  Thank you for all your good work and accomplishments!”

Carol LaGrasse , President, Property Rights Foundation of America

"I've reviewed your paper, and…[a]s always, it's an excellent piece of scholarship and research and superbly written, and it makes an important point about IP…"

-- William Reinsch, President, National Foreign Trade Council

"I would like to remain in contact with ITSSD and yourself, for I do appreciate the quality, the thoroughness, of your work. The topic of IP, innovation and developing countries is an issue which can only increase in importance over the coming years."

-- Mark Cantley, Adviser, Biotechnology, Agriculture and Food
Research Directorate-General, European Commission (RET)

"Dear Mr. Kogan, I really would like to thank you. The information is really relevant for us…You can update us in any issue you may think is important…I also would like to congratulate you for the quality of the paper. Your work is really impressive."

-- Marcio Coimbra, Academic Council, Instituto Liberdade, Brasil and
International Analyst, Madrid, Spain for the CIEEP, Brasil

"Lawrence A. Kogan's…thesis is Brazil is undermining its national innovation efforts by policies and practices whose ultimate effect is to discourage the creativity of the Brazilian people and divert meaningful levels of direct foreign investment…Kogan persuasively argues that Brazil would prosper under a strong regime of intellectual property protections. He points out that it has one of the world's greatest collections of plant and life forms, which could under gird the creation of a world-class
pharmaceutical industry, plus the development of [the medical] biotech...environmental biotech, agro biotech, and chemical sectors, among many others…But most of all, Kogan argues that Brazil is diminishing its own future by not creating a legal, political, and developmental environment in which Brazilians and foreigners are inspired and rewarded for innovating. This piece is lucid and written strikingly well. A full set of endnotes with sources, elaborations, and aside comments that merit attention backs the analysis. The audience should be Brazilian intellectuals, politicians, media and business people."

-- Pat Choate Ph.D, Director, Manufacturing Policy Project

"Like Hernando De Soto, Lawrence Kogan recognizes the importance of private property to nations, but he extends this recognition to the increasing globalization of trade in the vital area of IP rights. He fully embraces Article 1, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution, which acknowledges that the purpose of patent and copyright protection is "to promote (give incentive to) the Progress of Science and useful Arts (business)," all done to serve the nation's general welfare or common good. He vigorously promotes this justification for private IP in global trade as well…With a meticulously documented case, Lawrence Kogan shows that Brazil itself will benefit in the long-run from curbing its efforts to impair private property in what is currently protected by trade secret and patent law. From increasing foreign direct investment and providing incentive to its own private investors, Brazil will ultimately benefit more under- rather than out of- the private property regime. Lawrence Kogan provides an important service in reminding us why some nations are rich and others are poor."

-- O. Lee Reed, Professor of Legal Studies and Meigs Professor, University of Georgia

"Once in a long while, a person comes along who knows the inside scoop or holds a penetrating insight about a particular issue or situation that others simply overlook, ignore or take for granted. Lawrence Kogan is one such person who, in my opinion, correctly sees a major paradigm shift slowly taking shape in the international law of intellectual property rights. As Mr. Kogan explains, in painstaking detail, this shift is occurring notwithstanding the fact that successful private property rights regimes have resulted in remarkable scientific and technological advances and generated exceptional economic wealth throughout the world. This very comprehensive article represents a clear understanding of why we should all take pause and reevaluate the bases underlying the unprecedented rate and degree of human progress that has taken place during the past century…I strongly recommend that scientists and policymakers, especially those from developing countries, carefully read Mr. Kogan's well researched manuscript. His analysis accurately describes the close relationship between exclusive private property rights, scientific and technological innovation, and economic development."

-- John Kilama, Ph.D, President, Global Bioscience Institute

"Just an acknowledgement of your WLF Monograph, which is an encyclopaedic and valuable reference for those of us who have long (and generally with scant success) laboured to inject a more scientific approach into EU regulatory initiatives."

-- Mark Cantley, Adviser, Biotechnology, Agriculture and Food
Research Directorate-General, European Commission

"This important [WLF Monograph] analysis by Lawrence Kogan outlines in vivid detail the nature and scope of the risk we face from undocumented and undefined 'principles', while providing a path forward for all of the concerned stakeholders - government, industry and consumers. In that regard, it is an invaluable contribution to the growing debate about an issue that affects, in the long run, all of our daily lives."

-- The Honorable James C. Greenwood, Biotechnology Industry Organization

"In this Washington Legal Foundation Monograph, Lawrence Kogan explores and details the spread of the European Union's application of precaution in a quest for a risk-free world…Mr. Mr. Kogan recognizes the perils of further exports of this dangerous misinterpretation of the precautionary principle are far more lethal than any of the products attempted to be regulated…This comprehensive Monograph does a fine job of addressing the problems."

-- William H. Lash, III, Former Professor of Law, George Mason
University School of Law and Former Assistant Secretary for Market
Access and Compliance in the U.S. Department of Commerce

"This Washington Legal Foundation Monograph by Lawrence Kogan comes at a timely moment. Around the world, people are beginning to re-think systems of regulatory intervention that have grown apace…Mr. Kogan illustrates very clearly the dangers of regulatory approaches based on such phrases as 'a high level of social protection' - to use a particular European nostrum - but created without making a proper quantification of risk and without implementing realistic cost-benefit analysis….Mr. Kogan clearly sets out documented evidence and case studies of damaging initiatives whilst linking these to legal and economic theory. It does an excellent job in causing us all to pause for thought…"

-- Graham Mather, Esq., President, European Policy Forum, London, UK

"In a well-documented and encyclopedic tour-de-force, Lawrence Kogan demonstrates that Europe's application of the precautionary principle is already harming U.S. businesses and consumers…This Monograph clearly establishes that the precautionary principle is a malignancy that destroys economies and innovation while also proliferating to new regions to infect. Mr. Kogan has provided a much-needed call to action on the need to stop the precautionary principle now before it spreads further and causes more devastation."

-- Gary E. Marchant, Professor of Law, Executive Director & Faculty
Fellow, Center for the Study of Law, Science & Technology, Sandra
Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University

"Attorney Lawrence Kogan, CEO of the Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development, has tackled a particularly complex advocacy - one that involves a comprehensive knowledge of international and environmental treaty law - but his background has prepared him well."

-- Phil Zahodiakin, Ed., Pesticide.net Insider eJournal

"ITSSD raises debate about the 'Precautionary Principle'".

-- GMO Pundit a/k/a David Tribe, Australia

"The fight against RoHS lead ban is moving to a higher level, thanks to Lawrence Kogan JD, LLM and the ITSSD."

-- John Burke, Leadfree Electronics Assembly Forum, and Pushback

"Dear Mr. Kogan, It was a pleasure to meet with you again. I think you are doing excellent work."

-- Tom Amolo, Former Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Kenya, Washington DC

"Dear Mr. Kogan…we would like to thank you and your colleagues for meeting with the TBT delegation from Vietnam. The discussion and information provided will be very useful in their efforts for the BTA implementation and WTO accession. We appreciate the important contribution you made to their visit."

-- Thuy-Dung Ngo, Program Director, U.S. - Vietnam Trade Council

"Perhaps the most serious threat to the implementation of the Precautionary Principle is the claim that it conflicts with governmental obligations under the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements and other trade deals…[P]rivate industry has developed a series of well-crafted arguments about how Precautionary Principle-based regulatory systems violate WTO rules…

The National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC)…has issued a series of reports [authored by Lawrence Kogan] arguing that precautionary action conflicts with countries' WTO duties. The centerpiece of the council's elaborate argumentation is this: The WTO's Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards Agreement (SPS Agreement covering food safety, animal and plant health standards) and Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement (TBT Agreement covering regulations, standards, testing and certification procedures) requires countries not to use standards more stringent than those established by international agencies. Countries may exceed these standards only in very rare circumstances, and based on risk assessments. Regulatory action in the face of uncertain evidence - the core of the Precautionary Principle - conflicts with these rules.

As it happens, the NFTC's [Lawrence Kogan's] arguments are good ones, at least in WTO terms…Thus, although the Precautionary Principle may be an idea whose time has come, there is nothing inevitable about its adoption, implementation and diffusion."

-- Robert Weissman, Ed., Multinational Monitor

"A May [2003] Report by the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) [authored by Lawrence Kogan]…highlights the priority corporations place on crushing the Precautionary Principle. The EU rules on biotech are only the most prominent of precautionary rules that the NFTC argues conflict with WTO rules. Others that the NFTC say violate WTO provisions include EU rules requiring electronics manufacturers to take responsibility for products at the end of their consumer life, an EU chemicals strategy (known as 'REACH'), which will require chemical manufacturers to safety test their products before putting them on the market, and a directive prohibiting use in cosmetics of carcinogenic or mutagenic substances. The NFTC [Kogan] report makes clear how much corporations believe is at stake in the biotech case."

-- Robert Weissman, Ed. Multinational Monitor

"The NFTC made a huge splash with its 2003 paper, "Looking Behind the Curtain: The Growth of Trade Barriers that Ignore Sound Science"[authored by Lawrence Kogan], which argues that the EU's moratorium on GMOs as well as laws for tracing and labeling GMOs must be countered. The paper also calls for the overriding of Japanese and Korean quarantine requirements for fresh fruit and nuts; the striking down of bans in many countries on various food additives; the overturning of EU chemicals legislation; and the trashing of a host of other national environmental and health policies. The paper received strong support from the U.S. government, and US Department of Commerce personnel were apparently so impressed with the ideas it contained that they placed it prominently on their website."

-- Friends of the Earth International and CEO Corporate Europe Observatory