[A2k] Blogging WIPO: The New Development Agenda

Tue Mar 11 03:05:17 2008

Gwen and all,

  I still see a problem with openness and transparency with WIPO
despite this change in agenda, that problem being that WIPO still
doesn't recognize even in observer status non-member NGO's.
Some NGO's as you know choose for reasons of ethics to not
join other organizations such a WIPO so as to maintain objectivity.

Gwen Hinze wrote:

> --
> [ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
> FYI for those following the WIPO Development Agenda, the first
> meeting of the new Committee on Development and IP concluded on
> Friday, with (at least in my mind) little concrete progress. However
> Member States agreed to  continue discussions on an informal
> open-ended basis between  now and the next meeting in July.
>
> The full text of the Chair's Summary Report, together with notes of
> the public part of the proceedings and my take on events is now
> posted at EFF's Deeplinks blog:
>
> <http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/03/blogging-wipo-new-development-agenda>
>
> Thiru from KEI has kindly posted the documents that were in
> discussion at last week's meeting:
>
> <http://www.keionline.org/misc-docs/propositions.pdf>
>
> ---
> Blogging WIPO: The New Development Agenda
>
> Last year the World Intellectual Property Organization adopted a set
> of 45 ground-breaking proposals on how WIPO should reorient its
> operations to foster economic and social development within its 182
> Member States. The Development Agenda proposals are intended to
> require WIPO to take a broader approach to promoting creativity and
> innovation, instead of focusing exclusively on maximizing
> intellectual property rights.
>
> The Development Agenda asks WIPO to analyze the benefits of a rich
> and accessible public domain, to protect a robust public domain when
> it creates new IP norms, and to deliver balanced technical assistance
> to its members, including information about the flexibilities and
> options open to Member States to protect the welfare of their
> citizens. The new mandate also requires WIPO to increase transparency
> about its work, the consultants it uses, and the information it is
> providing to its Member States as part of its technical assistance
> programs. If implemented appropriately, the 45 Development Agenda
> proposals could result in profound changes at WIPO and in the
> international community's understanding of intellectual property
> regimes.
>
> This week was the first meeting of the new WIPO committee set up to
> implement the Development Agenda - the Committee on Development and
> Intellectual Property. It has been charged with formulating a work
> plan to put development in the mainstream focus of WIPO's operations
> and activities. Expectations were naturally high. At week's end, what
> we can report is that there was only small progress on concrete
> aspects of a work plan, and that Member States will continue in
> informal open-ended discussions between now and the next meeting of
> the Committee in July. The text of the Chair's Final Summary of the
> First Session is below.
>
> What is more interesting and ultimately more important, is the
> procedure that governed this week's discussions about how to craft a
> work plan to implement the Development Agenda. When the WIPO General
> Assembly agreed to adopt the set of 45 landmark recommendations last
> October, we believe the outcome it intended was the reorientation of
> WIPO's institutional culture, operations and strategic vision to
> facilitate the economic and social development of all of its Members.
> That requires first, a recognition that change is required together
> with a commitment to do it, and second, a means to assess whether
> change is underway. Unfortunately, that commitment was less present
> in this week's discussions.
>
> On the first day of this week's meeting, the WIPO secretariat
> circulated a a draft work plan, to fulfill one of the requirements
> set by the General Assembly. The document contained two parts: a
> Preliminary Implementation Report on the 19 proposals classed as
> immediately implementable, with a table listing current WIPO
> activities, and a Draft Implementation Plan for the other 26
> proposals, listing proposals for new projects. It also distributed a
> second document containing suggestions submitted by the Group of
> Friends of Development, the Republic of Korea, and the Group of
> Central European and Baltic States, respectively.
>
> Most of the first two days focused on whether government
> representatives should begin discussions with the subset of 19 of the
> 45 proposals that were classed as "immediately implementable" because
> they did not appear to require additional financial or human
> resources to implement (indicated in yellow here), or with the
> remaining set of 26 proposals, for which the WIPO secretariat had
> proposed activities that would require assessment of additional
> financial and human resource costs.
>
> This seemingly benign procedural discussion actually has great
> significance. Discussions were focused on the list of activities
> proposed by the WIPO Secretariat for implementation of the group of
> 26 proposals. The goal: to provide the Secretariat with a list of
> projects for which it could produce a cost estimate. However there
> was no consideration of any benchmarks or timelines to permit
> evaluation of progress toward meeting the intent of the
> recommendations. This is a serious omission. Without some type of
> benchmarks and evaluation process, there will be no mechanism for
> Member States to enforce their expectations for what should come from
> WIPO's commitments,
>
> In addition, there was almost no discussion of the second list, which
> contains the activities currently being undertaken by WIPO in
> relation to the 19 "immediately actionable" proposals. There was no
> evaluation of whether the activities that the WIPO Secretariat is
> currently undertaking are in accord with the spirit and intent of the
> Development Agenda. This lead to the uncomfortable perception that
> existing WIPO activities might automatically be considered to be
> development-oriented, or as one Member State so aptly put it, that
> this committee is engaged in an elaborate process of rubber stamping
> WIPO's existing activities as Development Agenda-compliant.
>
> All of this could lead to exactly the opposite of what the adoption
> of the 45 Development Agenda proposals was intended to achieve. That
> would be a grave manipulation of the promises of reform. WIPO could
> end up doing more of the same type of activities, but there would be
> no objective way to evaluate the impact or usefulness of those
> activities for development, and no mechanism to hold WIPO accountable
> for its new commitments. Meanwhile, any proposed development-oriented
> activities might yet be vetoed on the grounds of cost (even though
> WIPO had a budget surplus last year).
>
> Let's hope that this is rectified with Member State input in the
> informal consultations that will take place in the next months, and
> that we see projects, timelines and evaluation criteria that clearly
> evidence WIPO's commitment to change and accountability at the
> meeting in July.
> --
> Gwen Hinze
> International Policy Director
> Electronic Frontier Foundation
> Email:gwen@eff.org
> Tel.: + 1 415 436 9333 x110
>
> Please support EFF - Working to protect your digital rights and
> freedom of speech since 1990
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