[Open-wipo] IPJ Media Release: Development Agenda Meeting Considers Proposals to Reform WIPO

[Robin Gross]

IP Justice Media Release ~ 20 June 2005

Contact: IP Justice Executive Director Robin D. Gross
          Phone: +41-079-434-5126  Email: robin@ipjustice.org

Development Agenda Meeting Considers Proposals to Reform WIPO
Developing Countries Call for Weighing Costs Against Benefits of IPRs

(Geneva) Today the Member Countries of the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO) and several Non-Governmental Organizations including
IP Justice return to Geneva where the second round of the Development
Agenda (DA) discussions take place from 20-22 June 2005.

Last September, the WIPO General Assembly adopted the DA, a proposal
submitted by 14 developing countries and led by Brazil and Argentina
that calls for fundamental reform at the United Nations specialized
agency that deals with international intellectual property laws.  The
Friends of Development (FoD), the coalition urging reform, calls for a
change to WIPO's mandate and the creation of an independent research and
oversight body to ensure that all WIPO activities are driven toward
development-orientated results.

The first round of DA debate took place in April where delegates
discussed several proposals from Member States on how to address
developmental concerns within WIPO. During the first round of
discussions developed countries led by the United States generally
opposed any changes to WIPO's mandate or the creation of any new bodies.
The wealthy nations instead support a "strengthening" proposal that
would relegate any development talks to an existing standing committee,
the Permanent Committee on Cooperation for Development.

Developing countries generally oppose the US proposal out of concern
that their aims for broader reform will be relegated to a committee that
lacks direct access to the General Assembly and can be easily contained
or limited.  The 14-member FoD coalition includes Argentina, Bolivia,
Brazil, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Iran, Kenya, Peru,
Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, and Venezuela.

"WIPO needs to reform its one-size-fits-all (XL) approach to
intellectual property rights that overwhelmingly promotes the interest
of industrialized rent-seeking rightsholders at the expense of the
general public =96 particularly in developing countries," said Robin D.
Gross, Executive Director of IP Justice, an international civil
liberties organization that promotes balanced intellectual property
laws.  "Developed countries such as the US, have a long history of
refusing to respect foreign intellectual property rights in order to
promote their own national interest.  But now these countries want to
impose strict IP rules on poor nations and deny them a similar path of
development," explained Gross, an intellectual property attorney.

IP Justice is participating the DA discussions as one of the few
accredited NGO=92s representing the public interest in the debate at WIPO.
The IP Justice DA policy paper endorses the FoD proposal and the
creation of an independent evaluation and research office that would
evaluate all WIPO activities with respect to their impact on
development, innovation, creativity and access to, and dissemination of
knowledge and technology. IP Justice asserts that WIPO must consider the
costs of strict IP systems to developing countries, recognize that
countries at different stages of development have different needs,
protect flexibilities within the IP system to allow countries to promote
their own developmental needs, and that WIPO should work to become more
transparent, member-driven, and open to with ongoing inclusion of NGO=92s.


Links:

IP Justice Policy Statement on Development Agenda Proposals:
http://www.ipjustice.org/WIPO/WIPO_DA_IP_Justice_Policy_Paper.shtml

IP Justice Intervention Statement at 2nd IIM Meeting:
http://www.ipjustice.org/WIPO/WIPO_DA_IPJ_intervention.shtml

IP Justice WIPO Page:
http://www.ipjustice.org/WIPO/

IP Justice Development Agenda Page:
http://www.ipjustice.org/WIPO/WIPO_DA.shtml

An Elaboration of Issues Raised in Development Agenda - Submission by
the Group of Friends of Development:
http://www.ipjustice.org/WIPO/elaboration_DA.html


IP Justice is an international civil liberties organization that
promotes balanced intellectual property laws.  IP Justice defends
consumer rights to use digital media worldwide and is a non-profit
organization based in San Francisco.  IP Justice was founded in 2002 by
Robin Gross, who serves as its Executive Director.  To learn more about
IP Justice, visit the website at http://www.ipjustice.org.