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Advancing development agenda

After protracted negotiations, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) member-states recently finalised proposals on a development agenda for adoption by its General Assembly. This is a major step forward since the WIPO’s 2004 Geneva Declaration, which underscored the unsatisfactory balance struck between owners of intellectual property and end-users. That 40-plus public interest-oriented items were shortlisted, out of 111, for final approval and action i s a measure of the enormous ground that has been covered since 2005. In particular, the decision to establish a new Committee on Development and Intellectual Property, comprising member-states, with space for accredited inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations, will be welcomed by lobby groups that emphasised the role of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in realising, among others, the Millennium Development Goals. The attempt to broaden WIPO’s agenda to take on board the needs of developing and least-developed countries took concrete shape in Argentina and with Brazil’s 2004 blueprint, which was elaborated further by the Group of Friends of Development, comprising 14 countries. The burden of their position was that promotion of higher standards of protection for the IPRs and the harmonisation of laws globally must be balanced with the priorities of poor countries to protect the public interest in health, education, access to information and communication technology, and entertainment.

The best guarantee of protection for the IPRs, in their view, lies in factoring the circumstances of individual states in all agreements, as well as to respect the flexibilities allowed in domestic legislation. In addition, the heavy burden of the legal and administrative infrastructure cost should be reckoned with in the new commitments imposed on these countries. Given that provision of a wide range of services today is highly technology-intensive, keeping restrictions to the minimum would ensure against inequities of access in critical avenues of human life. States pressing for a development dimension in the WIPO, an affiliate of the United Nations, want an amendment to its 1967 Convention to that effect. Conversely, industrialised nations are content with equating the proposed agenda with WIPO’s technical assistance programmes, even as they admit the need for a better coordination of these activities. But in today’s increasingly knowledge-based global economy, bridging the digital divide is the one-stop solution that poor countries can ill-afford to delay.

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