However, a vocal minority of pirates who stand to benefit from weak laws and minimal enforcement disagrees. They've held off much legislation that threatens their imitation economy by cloaking themselves in national sovereignty and painting efforts to improve global and hemispheric intellectual property protection as developed-country aggression.

And when hemispheric leaders converge to negotiate the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and global leaders prepare to initiate a new round of trade talks at the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting, you can bet this minority will be vying to shape the debate and set the course for the next millennium.

Minimum global standards do exist -- the WTO's Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Agreement (TRIP) requires countries to provide adequate terms of protection for patents, copyrights, trademarks and industrial designs, and extends protection to computer software and integrated circuits by January 2000. As the deadline approaches, however, few countries are fully compliant.

The situation in Latin America is particularly dire. National industries that profit from copying patented goods -- such as pharmaceuticals -- have led the fight for rollbacks that would weaken existing intellectual property laws in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.

Though countries like Ecuador, Bolivia, and Paraguay have fulfilled certain obligations, corruption and insufficient enforcement have undermined proper implementation of laws on the books. Several countries, like the Dominican Republic, are beset by a mixture of structural difficulties and powerful interest groups that hinder most efforts at creating a coherent, modern intellectual property rights regime.

Despite the challenges Latin America faces, the FTAA ministers and WTO must resist the temptation to relax the agreed-upon standards or grant lengthy postponements (as El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua have already requested). If anything, Latin America must be urged to -- and supported in -- greater action in implementing strong protection.

Indeed, this is also the conclusion of nine Latin American economic scholars who recently signed on to an Alexis de Tocqueville Institution statement. They argue that intellectual property rights are a cornerstone of every modern society and free-market economy, and are particularly important for Latin America's developing economies.

One signatory, Eduardo Jorge Prats, executive director of the Dominican Republic's Fundacion Institucionalidad y Justicia, points out that, "The lack of protection for the products of intellectual activity effectively defuses any innovative effort by locals and the possibility for technological transfer from foreign businessmen."

Foreign investment, he said, is hard to come by when the know-how for the processes used in productions and their final results can be easily pirated.

"In a small economy like ours, these obstacles are practically a death knell to long-term economic growth, even more so in times of economic integration such as these."

Dora de Ampuero, executive director of Ecuador's Institute of Political Economy, also laments the poor state of her country's intellectual property situation. Ecuador's inability to enforce the substantial reform enacted in 1998 has resulted in an informal market of counterfeit books, software, videos and cassettes as well as pharmaceuticals.

"All of this is a total detriment to innovation and creativity because individuals know that they will never have access to harvest the fruits of their intellectual efforts," Ampuero says.

The statistics bear her out. According to the World Bank, 111,883 U.S. residents filed patent applications in 1996. In Ecuador that same year, only seven residents filed patent applications.

To encourage sustained growth and stability in the next century, Latin American countries must move away from economies overwhelmingly reliant on natural resources and toward a balanced approach that emphasizes technological and scientific innovation.

An effective, modern system of intellectual property protections will play a crucial role in attracting the investment and intellectual capital necessary to make such an innovation economy possible.

Too many Latin American leaders have failed to acknowledge the close connection between intellectual property protection and development. Consequently, TRIPs noncompliance becomes just another excuse to put off global standards of protection once again.

However, the 21st century and technological advancement wait for no one. Latin America's leaders must summon the political will to implement the necessary laws and address the inadequacies of infrastructure that often hamper enforcement -- or risk being left behind.