Report by Kanaga Raja, published in the SUNS (South-North Development Monitor), Geneva, 30 September 2004
Geneva, 29 Sep: Several civil society organizations gathered here for the annual General Assemblies of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) have welcomed and supported a proposal put forth by Argentina and Brazil calling for the establishment of a "Development Agenda'.
An NGO statement distributed at a media briefing Wednesday said that the proposal by Argentina and Brazil constitutes an unparalleled opportunity for all developing countries and development-oriented NGOs to put on WIPO's agenda the issue of development.
The statement, signed by over 25 organizations, urged the developing countries and other NGOs to support the initiative.
The proposal is up for discussion Thursday at the Assemblies. Among other things, it calls for redirecting the focus of the agency to a range of initiatives more responsive to development and the concerns of its critics.
According to the NGOs, the proposal has the support of a group of developing countries, including Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Iran, Kenya, Sierra Leone, South Africa,Tanzania and Venezuela.
Additionally, another group of about 500 eminent persons have called on the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to change course and incorporate economic, social and cultural development within its mission, instead of pushing for stronger forms of intellectual property rights.
The group comprising scientists, economists, legal experts, consumer advocates, and health activists including two Nobel Laureates made this call in their statement titled the "Geneva Declaration on the Future of the World Intellectual Property Organization" (SUNS #5652).
The statement was drafted to support to an Argentina/Brazil proposal calling on WIPO to adopt a 'Development Agenda', which has been tabled at the WIPO General Assembly meetings this week.
The "Geneva Declaration" advances a global perspective, whereby innovators, creators and developing countries have a common interest in exploring new and promising forms of cooperation. It signals the formation of a new coalition of individuals and public-interest NGOs from both the North and the South, which seeks to put on the table alternative proposals to foster creative endeavour.
The Declaration states in part: "We do not ask that WIPO abandon efforts to promote the appropriate protection of intellectual property ... But we insist that WIPO ... take a more balanced and realistic view of the social benefits and costs of intellectual property rights as a tool, but not the only tool, for supporting creative intellectual activity."
The Declaration refers to the 1974 agreement with the UN establishing WIPO as a specialized agency of the UN system, which requests WIPO to take "appropriate action to promote creative intellectual activity," and facilitate the transfer of technology to developing countries, "in order to accelerate economic, social and cultural development."
The signatories of the Declaration believe that a more appropriate expression of WIPO's mission is found in the 1974 UN/WIPO
Agreement, which calls for WIPO to "promote creative intellectual activity and facilitate the transfer of technology related to industrial property".
At the media briefing Wednesday, Martin Khor, Director of the Third World Network, referred to the recent Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue meeting on 17-18 September, where concerns emerged among many NGOs as well as from scientists, lawyers, librarians and software developers on the future direction of WIPO, and out of this has emerged the Geneva Declaration.
Khor said that the signatories of the Declaration were not against intellectual property rights (IPRs) altogether but were for appropriate IPRs that strikes the right balance between rights holders and the rights of the public such as consumers of essential goods like medicines, consumers of information as well as other users such as small and medium sized enterprises in developing countries.
Khor added that a major milestone was the TRIPS agreement at the WTO that had jacked up standards of intellectual property rights and protections for the developing countries and today many of these countries are concerned that they have to adhere to patent or copyright-levels that are excessively high.
Even the developed countries themselves did not have to subscribe to such high standards when they were at their early stage of development, Khor stressed.
As such, problems have emerged with regard to access to medicines, as well as those relating to traditional knowledge with respect to local communities involving biodiversity that has been inappropriately patented, Khor said.
While many people involved in intellectual property have been focussing on the WTO and TRIPS, there has been an increasing awareness that there have been new developments in WIPO that may tilt the balance in a more unbalanced way in favour of monopoly privileges of a few and against the public interest, Khor added.
Julia Oliva of the Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL) said that the NGOs have raised the issue of IPR as a tool for development and not an end in itself.
The proposal by Argentina and Brazil constitutes a milestone as it crystallizes concerns raised by the different bodies in a systematic way, Oliva said.
