[Ecommerce] FYI: EFF Press release on WIPO accreditation fiasco

[Manon Ress]

Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release

For Immediate Release: Monday, March 07, 2005

Contact:

Cory Doctorow
   European Affairs Coordinator
   Electronic Frontier Foundation
   cory@eff.org
   +44 798 607-2869

Gwen Hinze
   International Affairs Director
   Electronic Frontier Foundation
   gwen@eff.org
   +1 415 436-9333 x110 (office)

WIPO Shutting Out Public Interest Organizations

Experts on Development Won't Be Heard at Crucial Meetings

Geneva - Last week, the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO) announced that it will shut out most
public interest organizations at two important meetings
devoted to intellectual property and development. As a
result, WIPO delegates from 182 nations will discuss these
issues without hearing from many of the world's
best-qualified experts.

Scheduled for next month, two WIPO "Development Agenda"
meetings will focus on the impact of copyright, patent, and
other intellectual property rights regimes on the
developing world. Without the public interest
organizations, the discussions will be heavily weighted
toward major motion picture studios, broadcasters,
pharmaceutical giants, and other powerful interests that
want to expand copyright and patent law.

"This is an embarrassment for WIPO," explained EFF European
Affairs Coordinator Cory Doctorow. "Settling the debate by
locking one side out of the building isn't the way the UN
is supposed to work. We love the Development Agenda -- it's
supposed to be a new direction for WIPO. A one-sided
discussion isn't a new direction, though. It's just more of
the same."

These meetings are a response to the proposal put forward
by Brazil and Argentina in the wake of the Geneva
Declaration on the future of WIPO, which was signed by
hundreds of individuals and public interest
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including the
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Most public interest groups have only recently begun
participating in WIPO and are not yet permanently
accredited by the organization, since the accreditation
process takes a year and they have always been able to
participate as "ad hoc" observers in the past. On March 2,
however, the International Bureau Secretariat advised EFF
that only those NGOs that are currently accredited as
"permanent" observers at WIPO will be allowed to attend
these meetings. As a result, the bulk of civil society will
be barred from attending.

"The Secretariat's exclusion of ad hoc observer NGOs raises
fundamental questions about WIPO's commitment to a full and
thorough discussion of the important issues  in the
Development Agenda proposal," said EFF International
Affairs Director Gwen Hinze.

EFF is accredited as a WIPO permanent observer and will be
attending the meetings. The group will be reporting on the
proceedings and will attempt to represent the viewpoints of
some of the other public interest groups that are being
excluded from the process.

More on EFF's involvement in WIPO:
http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/

Development Agenda meetings will be blogged at:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks

For this release:
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_03.php#003401

About EFF

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil
liberties organization working to protect rights in the
digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and
challenges industry and government to support free
expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported
organization and maintains one of the most linked-to
websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/


--
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

Consumer Project on Technology in Washington, DC PO Box 19367,
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