[A2k] General Statement by Pakistan at 3rd WIPO PCDA

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

Please see google doc link for formatted version.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddcqgbkq_0dbmh6h


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Draft General Statement by Pakistan at the
Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda
(PCDA), Geneva, 19-23
February 2007


Mr. Chairman,

Let me congratulate you on your election to the chair of this important
meeting.  We would also like to congratulate the distinguished
Ambassador of Kyrgyzstan for his election as the Vice-Chair.  We are
sure that under your able leadership we can make substantive progress
on the important task before this committee.  We also appreciate the
hard work and support of the WIPO Secretariat.

We align ourselves with the statement made by Bangladesh on behalf of
the Asian group.  We would also like to express our sincere
appreciation ot the President of the General Assembly, Ambassador
Enrique Manalo of the Philippines for his hard work in preparation of
the informal working document for this meeting.  It provides a good
basis for future work at the PCDA.

Mr. Chairman,

Pakistan is fully committed to the PCDA mechanism and is supportive of
your role in moving the process forward by addressing substantive
issues.  We believe that development agenda discussions in WIPO form an
important milestone.  Development is a shared objective of the
international community.  It must not be allowed to be undermine or
diluted by a difference of opinion on the ways and means to achieve
this objective.  We need to have a meaningful and structure discussion
on a Development Agenda that can produce concrete results.

We feel that the most important issue at the heart of the development
agenda is the need to ensure that the intellectual property system
provides states, at different levels of development, with necessary
policy space to meet their development needs.

In the context of the document Annex A, which is under consideration at
this meeting, we feel that there is scope for further rationalizing the
proposals that are contained in the document.  The process, however,
should be inclusive, balanced and taking into account the different
stages of development of the WIPO member states.  In this regard,
proposals contained all six clusters in Annex A deserves due attention.

In particular, we attach importance to: (a) making technical assistance
more effective, demand driven and development oriented, (b) advancing
norm setting, particularly in genetic resources, traditional knowledge
and folklore, (c) preserving existing flexibilities that are provided
inter alia in agreements such as the TRIPs, (d) considering ways to
protect and expand the public domain and retain space for public
policy, and (e) ensuring greater involvement of stakeholders in WIPO
activities.  We also wish to underline the importance of transfer of
technology for development.

Mr. Chairman,

It may be recalled that, during discussion on the Development Agenda at
the last WIPO Assembly, my delegation had referred to three clusters of
concerns that confront many developing countries:

     i) Firstly, the impact of IP on prices and availability of
essential products such as pharmaceuticals, text books and software.
Many of these products are often prices out of the reach of consumers.
This may not be solely attributed to IP, but WIPO needs to play its
role in identifying measures required to enhance the affordability of
text books, educational software and essential drugs.

     ii) Secondly, the often constraining effects of IP on access to
technology and countries' ability to innovate and compete constitute
yet another cluster of concerns.  Access to technology has become
difficult in the face of broad patents, lengthened duration of
protection, insufficient disclosures, patent pools with
anti-competitive effects and skewed licensing conditionalities.  These,
and other mechanisms, are hardly conducive to developing countries'
endeavour to undertake research and development.

     iii) The third cluster of concerns pertains to the persistent
misappropriation of traditional knowledge and biological resources of
developing countries.  WIPO's ongoing work in this area must be
conducted expeditiously in order to reach an internationally binding
instrument incorporating the principles of prior informed consent,
equity and benefit sharing.

Mr. Chairman,

There is clearly a need to examine existing IP instruments with a view
to furthering their development impact.  Equally important, there is a
need to put in place procedures that would allow normative initiatives
taken within WIPO to be assessed on the criterion of whether these
contribute to developmental goals.  In this regard, the idea of a
"development impact assessment" merits serious consideration.  This
would entail that, while embarking on norm setting initiatives, some
fundamental questions should be squarely addressed, such as: Does the
initiative constrain , in any way, the ability of the developing
countries to innovate, to acquire know-how, to access goods at
affordable prices.  If there are possible downsides, are these
countered by adequate exceptions and flexibilities.  Are there clauses
for ongoing monitoring and review of the economic impact of a new
instrument? Such development impact statements should ensure balanced
norm-setting and would greatly facilitate efforts to evolves consensus
on norms which may be urgently required to meet new challenges.  We had
suggested this measure in the last two sessions of the WIPO Assembly.
We understand that the issue of "impact assessment" has partially been
addressed in four proposals contained in Annex B.  We fell, however,
that impact assessment should not be a secondary priority in
development agenda and WIPO Secretariat may be requested to undertake
impact assessment of the proposals contained in Annex A.

We will be making contributions on specific proposals as the
discussions unfold.

Thank you



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Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
voice +41.22.791.6727
fax +41.22.723.2988
mobile +41 76 508 0997
thiru@keionline.org