[Ip-health] Statement of KEI on end of IGWGII.bis --- IGWG over, without finishing it's work -- negotiation to continue into 2009, waiting for the new US president?

[James Love]

http://www.keionline.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=177

Statement of James Love, Director of Knowledge Ecology International on end of IGWGII.bisev

Geneva, May 3, 2008

The IGWG, having agreed on many items, could not agree on others, is now
over. The negotiations will continue into 2009, perhaps waiting for
signals from the next US president.

The work product from this week was not terrible, and not great. There
was surprisingly good progress on some topics (prizes, patent pools and
the R&D treaty were all mentioned, and there were lots of good text
other areas too), but the documents so far are pretty thin in important
areas, and  often weak on the details of the follow-through.

The IGWG did next to nothing on identifying R&D priorities, estimating
funding needs, or creating a framework for sustainable funding for
priority R&D, three tasks central to its mission.  Every effort to
create new norms, obligations or structures for funding R&D were blocked
for now by the Europe Union and the United States.

The negotiation will spill over to the May WHA, with more follow-up for
the Jan 09 EB meeting and the May 2009 WHA. It is looking also that the
WHO DG wants to know what the next US president will want, which makes
sense given the signals of the outgoing Bush Administration.

The European Union and the United States were basically in a mode to
defend the status quo and to keep their pharma industry lobbyists at
bay.  There were no profiles of courage among the high income country
delegates.  There were some very impressive performances among the
developing country delegates, including some several smaller countries.

  James Love, Knowledge Ecology International
  Until Sunday: Geneva mobile +41.76.413.6584

--
_____________________________
James Love, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
http://www.keionline.org, mailto:james.love@keionline.org
voice +1.202.332.2670, fax +1.202.332.2673, US mobile +1.202.361.3040,
Geneva mobile +41.76.413.6584

When everyone thinks the same, no one thinks.  Bill Walton remix of
Walter Lippmann