[Ip-health] FromGeneva: New Chair of WIPO Committee dealing with Development Agenda

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://fromgeneva.blogspot.com/2007/02/new-chair-of-wipo-committee-
dealing.html

New Chair of WIPO Committee dealing with Development Agenda

FromGeneva
February 19, 2007
Thiru Balasubramaniam

The WIPO committee (PCDA) overseeing the Development Agenda got off to
slow start today commencing at 10:48 AM (48 minutes late) due to
several concurrent regional coordination meetings. Brazil, on behalf of
the Group of Latin American and Caribbean countries (GRULAC) nominated
Ambassador Trevor Clarke of Barbados to be chair of the 3rd session of
the WIPO. Ambassador Clarke just finished a one year post chair the
World Trade Organization (WTO) Council for TRIPS. In his intervention,
the Brazilian delegate noted that Ambassador Clarke would be an
"execellent choice" and stated that "we trust him fully and he would be
a good person to guide us to a positive outcome".

Italy, on behalf of Group B (industrialized nations plus the Holy See),
seconded the nomination of Ambassador Clarke and proposed Ambassador
Muktar Djumaliev of the Kyrgyz Republic as Vice Chair. Both these
nominations were accepted by the WIPO PCDA. The choice of Vice Chair
was a curious one considering that the Kyrgyz Republic's submission of
40 proposals ("early harvest") is currently the main agenda item for
this week's discussion.

Ambassador Clarke set out a congenial start to the meeting with
charming candor noting that

     I will be working cautiously because this is a very serious
assignment, and one of my friends said that this is because I like
punishment. But I'm always to take a challenge, so thanks for the
opportunity to do this. To date, I know very little about the PCDA, but
I've been talking to as many members as I can to get a feel for what's
going on. Let me assure, however, that any contribution I make can only
be made with your support. My role is to facilitate dialogue. I come to
the Committee with the belief that you want to make progress on the
matter that has been under discussion for two and a half years.We need
to consider how we proceed this week. One critical issue relates to
President Manalo's (Ambassador of the Philippines and Chair of the WIPO
General Assembly) initial working document. We should seek your
cooperation to use this working document for our discussions this week.
The document has been produced by the recommendation or instruction
from the GA. It is intended to guide our work this week and then in
June.



As Ambassador Clarke had another engagement at 11 AM, he suspended the
meeting till 3PM. Before the morning session closed, the WIPO PCDA
accepted the requests for ad hoc accreditation from Knowledge Ecology
International (KEI) and the Yale Information Society Project.

For an overview of some of the issues at stake please check out my
colleague Malini's blog post on a KEI brown bag lunch held recently in
Washington, D.C.




---------------------------------
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