[Ip-health] Sangeeta on WIPO: Uncertainty as Development Agenda talks end without result

[James Love]

This is Sangeeta's account of the end of last week's meeting on the
WIPO Development Agenda, which ended without any decisions.  Jamie

SUNS #6061 Wednesday 5 July 2006
south-north development monitor SUNS [Email Edition]
twentysixth year  6061  wednesday  5  july  2006

WIPO: Uncertainty as Development Agenda talks end without result

Geneva, 3 July (Sangeeta Shashikant) -- Uncertainty hangs over the
future course
of the Development Agenda in WIPO as the latest meeting on this
initiative ended
last Friday (30 June) without recommendations to be sent to the WIPO
General
Assembly on how the Agenda should proceed.

Negotiations on how to move forward reached a stalemate early Friday
afternoon.
The week-long talks took place at the second meeting of the Provisional
Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda (PCDA).

The way forward for the development agenda -- in terms of the process
to manage
the 111 proposals currently before the PCDA and to determine how to move
forward on these proposals -- has now been left to the General
Assembly in
September to decide.

WIPO Member States could only agree to transmit the official reports
of the
PCDA meetings and other official documents that have been discussed
to the
General Assembly.

The other official documents would include Doc. No. PCDA/1/6 Prov. 2
that
contains the 111 proposals that have been clustered under the heading
of (A)
technical assistance and capacity building; (B) norm-setting,
flexibilities, public
policy and public domain; ( C) technology transfer, ICT and access to
knowledge;
(D) assessments, evaluation and impact studies; (E) institutional
matters including
mandate and governance; and (F) other issues, and Doc PCDA 2/2,
presented by
the Group of Friends of Development (GFOD) containing "Proposal on the
Decision of the PCDA on the Establishment of a WIPO Related Agenda"(See
SUNS #6055 dated 27 June 2006).

In the final moments before the close of the meeting, the Kyrgyz
Republic
submitted a "Proposal on the Recommendation to the General Assembly
of WIPO"
(PCDA/2/3). This document reflects entirely the paper that the PCDA
Chairman
(Ambassador of Paraguay Rigoberto Gauto Vielman) had presented and
that was
rejected by many delegations as soon as it had been proposed. Thus,
this paper also
now forms part of the official documents that will be presented to
the General
Assembly.

While there are differences on the future process, there is
significant convergence
on the need for discussions on the development agenda (DA) to
continue. Brazil,
Argentina, Philippines, South Africa, Egypt and several other
delegations spoke in
favour of continuing discussions.

Nigeria suggested the setting up of a Standing Committee that meets
twice a year.
The Asian Group reaffirmed their belief on the need to mainstream the
DA into all
WIPO's activities.

During the course of the week, several approaches were discussed on
how to deal
with the 111 proposals that had been consolidated from proposals
submitted by
Member States in the last DA meetings (Doc. No. PCDA1/6 Prov. 2) and
the paper
of the GFOD (Doc. No. PCDA/2/2), but there was no agreement on which
approach to adopt.

On Thursday, the Chair tabled a paper with his own approach. It
turned out to be
the "straw that broke the camel's back". There was a storm of protest
to this
approach.

The Chair's paper listed certain selected proposals under each of the
abovementioned clusters. The paper claimed that these proposals
"received
emerging consensus support during the PCDA process". The paper added
that the
"future discussions would consider and build upon" these proposals.

The paper said that the list was "without prejudice" to any proposals
submitted in
the previous DA meetings and that the future discussion would
continue to deal
with all the other proposals.

According to analyses by several NGOs, the paper mainly reflected
proposals
supported by the US and the EU, including some elements of the Africa
Group's
paper, but excluded  many of the crucial proposals of the GFOD, which
are the
main initiators and proponents of the DA.

This method of work had been rejected twice before. The first
occasion was during
a pre-meeting consultation held by the Chair with the different
regional groupings,
wherein he floated the idea that the 111 proposals be divided into
three baskets i.e.
proposals that commanded consensus, proposals on which there was
emerging
consensus and proposals on which there was no consensus. However,
this was
rejected by several delegations.

This approach was proposed again on Monday, the first day of the PCDA
session,
and once again it was rejected by several delegations (See SUNS #6055
dated 27
June 2006).

The Chairman said that he had not included the proposals of the GFOD, in
particular those listed in their latest paper, PCDA/2/2, due to
insufficient time, but
he added that he was open to hearing the views of the GFOD. This
flimsy reason
was not accepted and led GFOD members such as Brazil, Argentina,
South Africa,
Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and many other delegations to firmly reject
the paper
presented by the Chair.

The GFOD was unwilling to negotiate on a paper that it thought
undermines the
DA. They indicated their preference to bring the battle of the future
of the DA to
the General Assembly. It is their hope to obtain an outcome that
better reflects the
core components of their DA proposals presented in previous DA
meetings (Doc.
No WO/GA/31/11, IIM/1/4, PCDA/1/5) and most recently in PCDA/2/2, rather
than to accept an approach that omits most of their proposals.

Brazil, one of the GFOD leaders, in its final statement on Friday
said it would like
to continue discussion in as inclusive a way as possible. It said
that it did not want
to go through the proposals mechanically, adding that it was
important to
understand the reasoning behind the proposals, and this takes more time.

It also said that the issues will take time to mature. Responding to
comments
particularly by the developed countries, that significant time and
financial
resources had been spent on the DA, Brazil said that in WIPO, some
processes had
taken more than 10 years and the outcome has been less than
satisfactory. Thus, if
a process takes a long time, then it takes a long time, but that does
not mean that
the process has to be abandoned.

Rome was not built in one day, the Brazil delegate added. It is for
these reasons
that it could not accept the proposals being categorized on the basis
of whether
there is or is not any "consensus".  If that is the filter, the DA
would be scaled
down while the original DA would be lost.

Several times in the last two days of the PCDA meeting, Nigeria tried
to reconcile
differences by proposing a separate approach, including a suggestion
to divide the
proposals into categories of the short, medium and long term. It also
proposed
criteria that could be used to divide the proposals into these
categories. However,
this proposal did not go very far.

In any case, it is not clear whether Group B (comprising developed
countries)
would have endorsed any other approach, as it repeatedly supported
basing
discussions on the paper prepared by the Chair. As the Chair's paper
is now
embodied in the proposal by Kyrgyz Republic, that is to be sent to
the General
Assembly, it is probable that Group B will support the Kyrgyz
Republic paper
during the Assembly.

Once the Chair presented his paper on Thursday, it was clear that
there would be
no agreement at the PCDA meeting. The Chairman, as he presented the
paper, said
that he would need to work with the Group of FOD, to see how their
proposals in
their latest document (PCDA/2/2) can be incorporated into his text.

However, as soon as he finished saying that he wished to hold
informal meetings
with the regional coordinators to consider his document, Brazil
raised its flag, and
said that "We do not agree on this way of working and the draft is
not acceptable
to us". It added that the document was not drafted within the agreed
parameters
and that it would prefer to have no document at all.

Argentina said the Chair's paper represented an approach rejected by
WIPO
members, and that what had been agreed to initially was being
reversed . Other
countries that rejected the proposal include Iran, South Africa and
Cuba.

Bolivia, supporting delegations that rejected the Chair's paper, said
that under the
norm-setting cluster in the Chair's paper, about 10 or 12 items from
the original list
had been deleted.

Unsurprisingly, the Swiss delegation on behalf of Group B said that
it was
prepared to consider the Chair's paper. Kyrgyzstan and Mexico took a
similar
position.

Even on hearing the various rejections of his paper, the Chairman
still insisted that
Members meet informally to hold further discussions. He explained
that due to the
limited time available he was not able to incorporate elements in the
paper
presented by the Group of FOD (referring to PCDA 2/2).

That suggestion was met with immediate opposition from Brazil that
said that it
would not agree to discuss anything informally as whatever that was
agreed to
informally, was not respected in formal sessions.

While the Chairman made his final plea that there should be informal
consultations on how to proceed, most delegations indicated that they
needed to
consult in their regional groupings and the meeting broke up. Even
when they
reconvened, positions remained the same, with several countries
rejecting the
Chairman's paper, while some others considering it as a good basis
for discussions.

Delegations that took the latter positions were Croatia on behalf of
the Central
European and Baltic States, Kyrgyzstan, Austria on behalf of the
European
Community, and Switzerland on behalf of Group B.

Brazil reiterated that there was no point in continuing as the
Chair's proposal had
excluded the views of the GFOD. It should not be just the agenda of
developed
countries, it added. It had instructions not to continue the process,
and it wanted
instead that a report be submitted to the GA that makes clear that
its proposals are
contained in four sets of documents that have been submitted from the
start of the
DA process (i.e. documents WO/GA/31/11, IIM/1/4, PCDA/1/5 and PCDA/2/2)
and that they remain on the floor as GFOD proposals, and that there
is no
agreement in this committee on how to proceed.

Argentina also supported Brazil's position. South Africa said that
the paper does
not reflect a balance of interest of all the delegations and hoped
for an outcome
that would accommodate all the interests.

Iran said that in the two years of discussions, the GFOD has shown
flexibility by
discussing the other proposals of Member States cooperatively but it
should not be
assumed that the proposals of the GFOD that detailed the components
of the DA
could be ignored, adding that it could not support the Chair's paper.

Nigeria on behalf of the African Group said that it wanted to see the
continuation
of the process until a desired outcome is reached. On the Chair's
paper, the Africa
Group said that it could form the basis of work in principle without
endorsing it as
it stands at present.

Bahrain and the Asian Group said that they would go along with the
consensus.

India felt that the Chair's paper was "lop-sided" and did not
adequately reflect the
list of proposals identified as enjoying emerging consensus. It added
that there was
inadequate parity for what is put as short term and what was put to
the future and
that there was no listing of issues for consideration in the medium
term. It said that
it was not in a position to accept the paper as it currently stands.

Chile said that perhaps the best thing is to take the Chair's
proposal off the table,
and explore new ways of looking at the problem.
+


---------------------------------
James Love, CPTech / www.cptech.org / mailto:james.love@cptech.org /
tel. +1.202.332.2670 / mobile +1.202.361.3040

"If everyone thinks the same: No one thinks."  Bill Walton