[Ip-health] National Review article on WIPO: Dating Yourself

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://article.nationalreview.com/?
q=3DZjI1NDJjNTQwN2RlNGI5YzhmMDkwOWVhOGFmMWJkN2M=3D

Dating Yourself
Fear and frustration in Geneva.

By Claudia Rosett

While all eyes are on the circus surrounding the trip by Iran=92s
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the United Nations General Assembly in
New York, a quiet but important showdown over misconduct is shaping up
at high levels of a major United Nations agency in Geneva. In this
case, one of the whistleblowers is none other than Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice.

That is the story sketched in a United States State Department
=93priority action=94 cable obtained by this reporter, indicating that the
agency is the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization, or
WIPO, which is the global registry and guide for international
copyrights, patents, and intellectual-property law. The fracas centers
on the behavior of a Sudanese national who has run WIPO since 1997 and
worked there since 1982, Director-General Kamil Idris.

Early last year Idris had his own U.N. personnel file amended to drop
nine years from his age =97 thus allegedly acquiring a new lease on
U.N.-related opportunities and benefits, possibly including a payout of
more than $500,000 from WIPO when his current term as director-general
expires in 2009. Following his age change, Idris is now officially 53
years old, instead of 62. According to the State Department cable,
which was sent out in June over the name of Rice to dozens of U.S.
embassies worldwide, that=92s just one piece of a disturbing picture.

Secretary Rice=92s cable states that WIPO under Idris =93has experienced
multiple scandals in recent years,=94 the most recent =97 involving his age
change =97 emerging in a 2006 WIPO internal audit report that, according
to the Rice cable, concluded Idris =93had violated WIPO staff rules and
ethical standards by using two different dates of birth (DOB) at WIPO
for personal gain.=94 The cable noted that =93Idris has been involved in
previous dubious activities at WIPO, including questionable use of WIPO
resources for personal items such as construction of a swimming pool at
his residence.=94

Other alleged abuses include Idris providing false information about
his birth date to the U.S. State Department. The Rice cable says he
used his previous and apparently false birth year =97 1945 instead of the
currently preferred 1954 =97 not only for purposes of WIPO records and
the United Nations pension system, but also =93with the Swiss government
and on visa applications to many countries, including the United
States, without indicating it was incorrect or attempting to correct
it.=94

In the cable, under the caption =93demarche request,=94 Rice asks State
Department officials abroad to seek support of their host countries to
hold Idris accountable for conduct which according to her sources
=93broke the rules=94 and has =93seriously damaged morale and emboldened hi=
m
to pursue personal retaliation and preferential treatment at WIPO.=94

Idris, via a WIPO spokeswoman, earlier this year denied all wrongdoing;
said he did not stand to benefit from the age change; and claimed that
all allegations against him are part of a =93racist harassment campaign.=94
WIPO=92s press office did not respond to queries sent by e-mail early
this past week.

Idris=92s age change first came to public attention with stories in early
2006 in the Swiss French-language press. A U.N. internal oversight arm
known as the Joint Inspection Unit asked WIPO=92s lone internal auditor
at the time, Marco Pautasso, to investigate. Pautasso, who has since
been transferred to another U.N. job, produced a 35-page report, dated
November 29, 2006. It was marked =93Confidential.=94 By early 2007,
however, copies of the WIPO internal audit report on Idris had leaked
to the press, and despite WIPO efforts to suppress it, the document has
been circulating publicly for months.

The report, cited in Rice=92s cable, notes that Idris signed on to the
apparently false, earlier birth date multiple times on a variety of
official documents over the course of almost 24 years. The report
further suggests that had Idris applied for his initial job at WIPO as
a candidate aged 28 (which he apparently was), instead of 37 (which his
revised record now shows he wasn=92t), =93he would not have fulfilled the
general requirement of 10 years professional experience for the post,=94
and at later junctures might not have risen as quickly through the
ranks.

In trying to determine whether all this was sheer accident, the auditor
detailed a long list of inconsistencies in the document trail that
accompanied Idris from his birth in Sudan, to his student years in
Cairo, to Ohio State University in the U.S. (where the auditor reported
finding a student record showing yet another birth date, of 1953),
followed by a stint at the Sudanese Mission to the U.N. in Geneva; and
his hiring at WIPO in the early 1980s. For instance, the auditor
reported such inconsistencies as Idris, while working at WIPO,
representing himself on U.N. laissez-passer travel documents and U.S.
visa applications as having been born in 1945, while simultaneously
holding a Swiss driver=92s license and Sudanese passport describing him
as born in 1954.

These matters have yet to reach the official purview of WIPO=92s
governing bodies, consisting of scores of member states that convene
Monday for their annual meetings in Geneva. According to documents seen
by this reporter, it was only after a heated exchange of letters during
the past month between the American mission in Geneva and top
management at WIPO that Idris finally agreed earlier this month to
American demands to include the audit report on the draft agenda for
debate by WIPO=92s governing member states.

Last month the U.S. Mission=92s legal counsel sent WIPO a request that
the audit report about Idris=92s age be placed on the provisional agenda.
WIPO=92s legal counsel sent back a letter refusing the request, saying
=93the legality of the report has been challenged by several, including
some WIPO member states,=94 and adding that =93the said report is
confidential and needs to remain so=85 .=94 The American ambassador to the
U.N. in Geneva, Warren W. Tichenor, then wrote to Idris himself,
repeating the request and stating that according to WIPO's rules, =93You
as Director General are obliged to comply with our request and
therefore it is the expectation of the United States Government that
this item appear on the draft agenda.=94

Idris wrote back to say that he was under no such obligation, but that
the report had now been added to the draft agenda. He noted, however,
that =93it is up to the Member States of WIPO to adopt the agenda on the
first day of the Assemblies.=94

Given the highly politicized voting blocks at the U.N., replicated in
the assemblies of agencies such as WIPO, there is no guarantee that
when the votes are cast, the audit report =97 and Idris=92s conduct =97 wil=
l
make it on to the officially adopted agenda. This past Thursday, a
Geneva-based news outlet, Intellectual Property Watch, reported that
Idris recently held a retreat with Geneva-based ambassadors of the
Organization of the Islamic Conference, a powerful lobbying bloc at the
U.N., which may try to derail the American bid to address such
questions as Idris=92s age change.

A Geneva-based American lawyer, Edward Flaherty, who specializes in
defending U.N. whistleblowers, says the difficulty of achieving any
forward motion on such matters =93goes to the fundamental issue
concerning the abuse of international organizational immunity.=94 He adds
that too often U.N. officials feel free to do whatever they want,
=93comfortable in the knowledge that no matter what they do, they are
beyond the reach of national law, and unlikely to suffer any
consequences from their true keepers, the member states.=94

A few years ago, allegations of fraud surfaced in connection with
WIPO=92s renovation of one Geneva building and plans to construct
another, as well as Idris=92s purchase for personal use of a villa on the
outskirts of Geneva, where he involved the director of the WIPO
buildings division in constructing a swimming pool on the grounds (the
villa is currently listed on a Swiss real-estate website as for sale at
a price of 16 million francs, or $13.6 million).

That flap led to an external review of WIPO, delivered two years ago by
Ernst & Young with the caveat that its findings might be incomplete and
that new facts might emerge in a criminal investigation that was opened
by Swiss authorities. The Ernst & Young report did not find fraud (and
Idris has denied any wrongdoing). But Ernst & Young did report finding
management =93weaknesses=94 at WIPO =93which might lead to irregularities
being committed.=94 The report noted items such as a growing number of
short-term and consultancy contracts not in compliance with U.N.
guidelines, =93abnormally high=94 rental payments made on =93unusual=94 ter=
ms
for a building, and signs of =93frustration=94 and =93fear=94 among the WIP=
O
staff.

Bringing reform to WIPO is difficult even by United Nations standards,
because unlike most United Nations operations, it is largely
self-financing. According to WIPO documents, about 90 percent of its
roughly $200 million annual budget is funded by fees charged for its
services to persons who entrust to the agency the handling of their
intellectual-property rights.

=97 Claudia Rosett is a journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies

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