[WSIS CS-Plenary] WIPO denies ad hoc NGO observor statusfor April
Development Agenda meeting
James Love
james.love at cptech.org
Fri Feb 18 13:48:27 GMT 2005
On the IPR front, WIPO is the most important normative body. But of
course it often is important to address norm setting in other bodies,
like the WHO, WTO, UNESCO, UNCTAD, WSIS, UNDP, UNCTAD, Hague Conference,
OECD, ITU, UN Committees on Human Rights, etc, etc......, as well as
regional or local strategies. (right owners are certainly engaged
everywhere). I hope Milton understands that *none* of the groups
working on WIPO issues are ignorant or indifferent to the plethora of
fora for IPR issues. We (CPTech) now have a full time staff of 7 and
maintain offices in Washington, DC, London and Geneva, and spent a lot
of time in regional trade negotiations, bilateral trade disputes (I just
returned from Brazil this morning on discussions about patents on AIDS
drugs). I will say that anyone who is serious about global IPR norm
setting should attend some WIPO standing committee events, and get to
know personally many of the national government delegates who follow
these issues. Our own discussions on the WSIS IPR language have been
directly with national governments, building upon relationships that
were began in WTO and WIPO negotiations. Many of the WIPO Delegations
are surprised at the (until recently) low level of civil society NGO
activity at WIPO, compared for example with the WTO or WSIS. This has
been changing recently, and hence, it is alarming that the WIPO
Secretariat is seeking to restrict access to meetings by civil society
groups.
Coordination among groups working on global IPR issues is important, and
it has been improving quite a bit in the last 5 years. If you look for
example at the signatures to the Geneva Declaration on the Future of
WIPO or the new letter on the medical R&D treaty (to be sent next week),
there is now much overlap between different groups (libraries, free
software, access to medicine, open access publishing, consumers
organizations, leading academics, development groups, cyber rights,etc).
There is of course, more to be done, and we welcome suggestions
about how this can be best accomplished.
Jamie
Milton Mueller wrote:
> Hi, Shari
> I hope I did not imply that EFF should not be working in WIPO - it should, and everyone appreciates that work. Also, I do not mean to imply that EFF must stretch its resources to become as involved in WSIS/WGIG as we are here. We all know that is not possible. Everyone needs to focus their efforts on one thing or another.
>
> What we'd like to see is greater recognition and coordination of campaigns across venues. We have had a debate/dialogue here about the role of IPR issues in the WGIG and some have contended that the whole thing should be left to the WIPO forum. They have, I think, failed to understand the helpful and complementary effect that coordination across WSIS/WGIG, WIPO, and other forums could have.
>
> Dr. Milton Mueller
> Syracuse University School of Information Studies
> http://www.digital-convergence.org
> http://www.internetgovernance.org
>
>
>>>>ssteele at eff.org 02/16/05 2:59 PM >>>
>
> Hi Milton.
> WIPO's decision to reject ad hoc observers is terrible, and EFF plans to
> publicly criticize this. But I believe our work at WIPO has been worth the
> time and effort we've put in, and I think our decision to focus resources
> there has been a good one. We're not fighting the international IP battle
> at WIPO alone and never have been. We've been working in a more focused
> way on free trade agreements, and we've recently dipped our toe into
> UNESCO's cultural diversity proceedings. We believe that we can be
> effective in all of these fora, and we'll continue to focus our efforts there.
>
> EFF has stretched our limited resources as far as we can at this point, and
> I don't believe we'd be able to be as effective at any of the things we're
> doing if we added WSIS to our queue. I'm glad you're there fighting the
> good fight, because I know the work there is no less important.
> Shari
>
>
> At 09:14 AM 2/16/2005, Milton Mueller wrote:
>
>>So, now maybe CPTech, EFF and others will understand better why it is
>>necessary for them to help us push the WGIG into linking internet
>>governance and ipr issues. This battle cannot be fought in WIPO alone,
>>because the playing field is tilted (deliberately).
>>
>>
>>Dr. Milton Mueller
>>Syracuse University School of Information Studies
>>http://www.digital-convergence.org
>>http://www.internetgovernance.org
>>
>>
>>
>>>>>martin_olivera at yahoo.com.ar 2/16/2005 9:10:57 AM >>>
>>
>>FYI
>>
>> --- James Love escribió:
>>
>>>WIPO has apparently decided to reject applications
>>>for ad hoc observor
>>>status for the April Development Agenda meeting.
>>>That will leave a very
>>>large number of speaking slots for right-owner NGOs,
>>>and very few for NGOs
>>>representing development groups, free software, or
>>>consumer interests.
>>>Perhaps a letter should be drafted to ask the WIPO
>>>Secretariat to change
>>>its position on this issue, in order to permit
>>>groups concerned about
>>>development and IP to attend. I note also that few
>>>developing country
>>>NGOs have permanent NGO status at WIPO.
>>>
>>> Jamie
>>>
>>>--
>>>A2k mailing list
>>>A2k at lists.essential.org
>>>http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/a2k
>>>
>>
>>=====
>>SOLAR Software Libre Argentina
>>http://www.solar.org.ar
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
> *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
> Shari Steele
> Executive
> Director ssteele at eff.org
> Electronic Frontier
> Foundation 415.436.9333 (voice)
> 454 Shotwell
> Street 415.436.9993 (fax)
> San Francisco, CA 94110
>
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>
--
James Love, Director, CPTech, http://www.cptech.org
Consumer Project on Technology in Washington, DC
PO Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036, USA
Tel.: 1.202.387.8030, fax: 1.202.234.5176
Consumer Project on Technology in Geneva
1 Route des Morillons, CP 2100, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 791 6727
Mobile +1.202.361.3040
james.love at cptech.org
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