WIPO, Monday afternoon: Who said what when?
Sorry for not posting earlier. Yesterday evening became a bit hectic when, to pretty much everyone’s surprise, the country delegations kept their comments so short that all of a sudden the NGOs were invited to make their statements. As many of us had estimated that it would be Tuesday afternoon before we got to say anything, this prompted energetic preparations. It went quite well, though.
Much like the morning, the afternoon was dedicated to discussions about how to discuss. The assembly has roughly split into two blocks, thereby clarifying the situation a bit: On the one side, there are the “Group B” countries, roughly equivalent to the EU. This group has been joined even by the United States, which by now seem to have realised that they will not be able to simply stifle any change in WIPO. (Remember their charming proposal to close the knowledge gap by setting up a website to coordinate “IP donors” with “IP recipients”.)
On the other side, there is the core group of the Friends of Development, led by Brazil and India. They have been joined by almost all developing countries. A few days ago at the 2nd South Summit in Doha, Quatar, some 130 developing countries (including China) had met and demanded a more inclusive international regime on patents, copyright and trademarks. They even included the NGO-born “Access to Knowledge” phrase in their final statement.
This statement was signed by, among others, the King of Bahrain. This made for quite an interesting moment yesterday afternoon, when the representative of Bahrain made a statement that contradicted the South Summit’s outcome on all accounts. This prompted the Egyptians to ask him if the King of Bahrain had maybe changed his mind about Access to Knowledge on the flight back?
The issue now at stake is the forum where a Development Agenda for WIPO will be worked out. The rich countries suggest strengthening the Permanent Committee on Cooperation for Development related to Intellectual Property (PCIPD). This is a mostly advisory body, whose decisions the General Assembly is free to ignore.
The developing countries prefer to set up a really independet office for evaluation of and research into the development impact of WIPO’s policies. This is the solution most likely to serve the cause, which is why it is so intensely fought by the rich countries. Well, it would probably cost a bit of money, and it might just be that the rightsholding industry would not be too forthcoming in their support of this particular body.
Now, the morning session is about to start. I’ve been advised that it will be mainly about procedural infighting. But at least the development agenda idea has gotten too far to simply be denied its importance. It’ll be an interesting morning.