off to horsetrading they go
After the meeting had started an hour later than usual, the NGOs that hadn’t been able to speak yesterday (as the Chairman cut off the round of NGO statements after an overly long and off-topic contribution from the International Chamber of Commerce) got their turn. There were not too many surprises, except for some sharp reactions to one of the more clear public interest NGO statements.
This took about an hour. Then, the meeting was adjourned, and the Chairman went into informal (read: secret) horse-trading sessions with the different groups. These continued over a very extended lunchtime. The session is supposed to resume at about half past four, when delegates will try to agree on something to send to the General Assembly.
Unfortunately, I will not be able to be there personally, as I have to catch the train to Zurich. But I will contact a number of people to find out and be able to tell you what is going to happen.
The indications I have are not pointing towards anything remotely resembling consensus. While the British came out with something that sounded like a compromise yesterday, and the African Group formulated something compromisey this morning, in reality there has been very little movement.
One of the British delegates expressed that he did not understand why the Friends of Development so desperately wanted to keep negotiating the question of the Development Agenda on a far more important forum than the half-dead PCIPD, where the last effective decision was made in 1999. This destroyed my impression that at last the EU as a whole had understood what the idea of a Development agenda is about.
Something the African Group suggested as a draft report for the meeting was the weakest document I’ve seen in a while. It does not even make reference to a continuation of the IIM process, much less of a Treaty on Access to Knowledge. Unfortunately, they used about one and a half pages for this nothingness; this means one can’t even use the back of the paper for notes.
From the Friends of Development side, there was quite some disappointment at the British paper. The items it suggested for “early harvest”, i.e. the ones where consensus might be easily reached, basically were those from the Bahrain proposal, concerning technical assistance as well as principles and guidelines. But these, in the mind of the Friends, really are issues which should be discussed when it has become clear what WIPO’s stance on Development will actually be, as they are merely going to implement that stance.
One rightsholder NGO delegate had an interesting Freudian slip (at least it came through this way in the translation): “That we are in favor of intellectual property does not mean that we are not opposed to development.”
Catching my train now. I hope to fill you in on the meeting’s outcome later.
By the way: If you ever get to stay at the budget City Hostel Geneva and need to get a bit of work done: There’s half-decent wireless connectivity if you sit on the top step of the stairway leading down to the basement.