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TWN Info Service
on Intellectual Property Issues (Oct08/09) The African Group prepared a submission to the Committee and this submission is available at http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/details.jsp?meeting_id=16204
No Agreement For WIPO Committee On Traditional Knowledge And Folklore 18 October 2008 By Kaitlin Mara (Intellectual Property Watch)
“No agreement,” said the meeting’s chair, Rigoberto Gauto Vielman, leaving the closing plenary. The lack of an outcome from the weeklong meeting of the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore signals deeper differences among WIPO membership over protection of these areas. The mood was one of frustration and exhaustion Friday as remaining delegates shuffled out of the meeting, some wondering what had happened to a week that at its beginning - with the encouragement of WIPO Director General Francis Gurry to move to concrete progress, two detailed analytical background papers from the secretariat, and a proposal from the African Group for stimulating new ideas - seemed poised to be a productive one. But after a day of opening statements and discussions in the plenary sessions reverting to a rehash of positions that were largely unchanged from past IGC meetings, it became clear that progress during the thirteenth IGC meeting from 13-17 October would have to be made in the area of future work, and in particular on a mandate repeated at last month¹s general assemblies to find a way to accelerate the Committee¹s work. At the twelfth session of IGC in February, the committee agreed to consider a decision on possible intersessional work as a means of acceleration. And success on this matter, while elusive, still seemed nearly within grasp all week. Even going into the final plenary session, meeting Chair Rigoberto Gauto Vielman told Intellectual Property Watch “I think they¹ll succeed.” The mandate to accelerate still stands and the work of the IGC will resume when the committee reconvenes in March for a regular meeting, where the possibility of intersessional work can be again discussed. The WIPO Program and Budget Committee had allowed for four IGC meetings between 2008 and 2009, and two meetings remain in the coming year. Some participants tried to make the best of the outcome. “There was no bad faith or ill will,” said Gauto during the meeting¹s close, according to a source. “We do not have to speak of failures.” “Nothing is better
than a bad deal,” said a representative from What stalled this
week¹s meeting was disagreement on two competing proposals on future
work: one submitted by the Group B, the developed
nations, expressed support for the chair¹s text, calling it “progress”
from the Key disagreements were over the composition of the proposed three working groups, timing of the sessions, and whether or not to make the three meetings concurrent. The three working groups would focus on issue areas: one on traditional knowledge, one on traditional cultural expressions, and one on genetic resources. The African proposal
calls for working groups limited to experts. Having the groups open
would just become another IGC, said an African delegate, who added that
But some member
states are wary about not having a representative in the process. A
delegate from According to sources,
There also were discussions over timing, with some members saying intersessional meetings would be too expensive and with others not pleased with an idea presented in Friday morning¹s informal sessions of holding expert group meetings during the week of the next IGC, as the working groups would then cut into the time available for full IGC plenary sessions. Some developed nations had said they would be willing to extend the length of the next IGC by several days as a compromise. The idea of holding the three working group meetings concurrently, which first appears in the chair¹s text, is problematic for small delegations, not all of whom have enough experts to attend concurrent sessions. Competing Texts The text circulated
by The African Group, which drafted its initial proposal before the IGC and met bilaterally with other regional groups all week in an attempt to create a proposal acceptable to the entire coalition, also submitted a final proposal on 17 October reflecting changes made throughout the week. The 17 October African
text calls for three working groups, but specifies that the meetings
not be held concurrently, that they be prior to the next session of
the IGC and each last five days, and that they be limited to a group
of 37 experts. This proposal also had the official support of A revised text,
entitled “draft decision on future work” and released late on Friday
evening proposed the compromise of replacing the next IGC with an “Extraordinary
Expert Session of the Committee” allowing for consecutive meetings of
three expert groups, each for two days, and with the composition of
the groups to be decided by the chair in consultation with members.
But many members were not happy with this proposal. “It means we lose
an IGC,” said a delegate from At a plenary session on Friday afternoon, the chair called for states to lay out the points they needed to insist on, and the areas in which there was flexibility. This frustrated
one delegate, who said that that discussion should have been held early
in the week, not so late in it. A separate delegate wondered, in conversation
with Intellectual Property Watch, whether there had been politics behind
the process, and a representative from Delegates pointed to a similar situation in the Development Agenda negotiations in 2006 in which the same chair late in the meeting introduced a proposal that did not appear to reflect compromise, or the wishes of many developing countries (IPW, WIPO, 30 June 2006).
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