TWN Info Service on Intellectual Property Issues (Jul26/05)
20 July 2026
Third World Network

WIPO: IP enforcement should remain in WIPO development agenda mandate, says South

Geneva, 18 July (TWN) – Developing countries and their coordinating groups insisted that the work of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Advisory Committee on Enforcement remain “balanced, proportionate and responsive to national circumstances” and firmly anchored in the WIPO Development Agenda.

This was emphasised when the WIPO General Assembly took note of the report of the Committee's eighteenth session during the 68th series of meetings of the Assemblies of the Member States of WIPO.

The WIPO Assemblies took place from 7 to 15 July at the WIPO headquarters in Geneva in a hybrid mode.

Introducing document WO/GA/60/9, Assistant Director-General Edward Kwakwa (Global Challenges and Partnership Sector) reported on the work of the eighteenth session of the Advisory Committee on Enforcement (ACE), chaired by Mr Tim Werner of Switzerland from 2 to 4 June 2026. The session, he said, addressed four work programme areas through 33 presentations, one panel discussion and five Secretariat presentations. He noted that the Secretariat's activities were “guided by Development Agenda recommendations 1, 3, 6, 10 to 14, 17, 40 and 45,” and that the Committee had agreed “to continue at its 19th session with the current work program.”

The African Group, through South Africa, said that the Group placed a clear limiting condition on their engagement with ACE and further stated that “enforcement measures must remain balanced, proportionate and responsive to national circumstances. They should support innovation while safeguarding broader public policy objectives, including public health, access to knowledge and sustainable development.”

The Group “encourage[d] WIPO to continue providing demand-driven technical assistance, capacity building and awareness raising programs,” including for “young people, enforcement authorities and business operating in increasing digital and technological-driven markets.”

GRULAC (Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries), through El Salvador, reaffirmed that the ACE “has proven itself to be a valuable space for the exchange of experiences.” It pressed the Committee to “continue considering biopiracy associated challenges and those related to the misappropriation of genetic resources and traditional associated traditional knowledge, recognizing its implications for legal certainty, biodiversity, conservation and the protection of rights and interests for indigenous and local communities.”

The Group gave “emphasis” to “the panel that took place at the 18th session of the Committee on the impact of impact in the biotechnology sector of Intellectual Property rights infringements,” describing it as “an area that's of special relevance for many countries in our region.”

China stated that it “has consistently attached great importance to IP enforcement and judicial protection" and would "continue supporting and actively participating in the work of ACE,” working “to build a more robust global IP system and more favourable international business environment.”

The Central European and Baltic States (CEBS) group, through Albania, “welcome[d] the rich discussions on best practices and national experience,” “especially practices that are dedicated to the fight against online piracy.” It “highly value[d] WIPO's legislative assistance and capacity building for national officials which properly take into account national flexibilities, different legal traditions and broader societal interests”.

The Central Asian, Caucasus and Eastern European Countries group (CASEEC), through the Russian Federation, welcomed “the attention of the Committee paid to the countering of violations of Intellectual Rights in the digital environment, including countering e-commerce spread of counterfeit produce,” and advocated “the development of a unified approach to checking Intellectual Property Rights and participants of digital platforms.”

India anchored its intervention in the TRIPS balance. Enforcement, it said, “must be balanced, holistic, effective and consistent with the TRIPS Agreement so that IP protection promotes technological innovation and transfer and dissemination of technology while maintaining a balance of rights and obligations”, i.e. the formulation of Article 7 of TRIPS.

It went further on the Committee's scope: “The enforcement disclosure must extend beyond counterfeiting to biopiracy and the misappropriation of genetic resources and traditional knowledge,” citing its Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, which “has prevented erroneous patent granted across the jurisdiction.” India tied lasting confidence in the IP system to “awareness, equity and ensuring that the benefit of innovations are shared widely.”

Brazil explicitly placed the Committee's non-normative character on the record. It “commend[ed] the work methodology of ACE which serves as a forum for Member States to exchange and learn from one another's national experiences ... without any attempt to legislate or harmonize those efforts,” a methodology “fully consistent with the absence of a mandate for WIPO to adopt normative decisions on enforcement.”

Brazil welcomed the biotechnology panel, “which originates from the proposal made by GRULAC” but “regret[ted] that contrary to the spirit of the original proposal, no representatives from civil society were invited to speak at the panel as voices from Indigenous Peoples and local communities would have further enriched that debate.”

It also recorded a gap in the reporting itself, “a dedicated report detailing the Committee's contributions to the advancement of the [Development Agenda] and its objectives consistent with the 2010 Assembly decision would have been warranted.”

Ghana, also aligning with the African Group, held that “enforcement measures must remain balanced, proportionate and responsive to national circumstances while safeguarding public health, access to knowledge and sustainable development.”

Indonesia framed the same test as enforcement that is “balanced, development oriented and responsive to national circumstances while taking into account different legal traditions, levels of development and the broader public interest.”

Zambia, an LDC, echoed the “balanced, proportionate and consistent with national priorities and broader public policy objectives, including access to knowledge, public health and sustainable development” formula.

Argentina valued “specifically the technical and non-normative aspect” of the Committee's work, and Jamaica, “a country whose economic and cultural identity is deeply rooted in creativity, music and other cultural industries,” emphasised “balanced approaches to Intellectual Property enforcement.”

The developed countries framed enforcement as an end in itself. Group B (comprising several developed countries), through Germany, held that “without robust and balanced enforcement mechanisms the infringement of IP rights remains a major threat to the development of all economies... while putting at risk consumer safety and global public health,” and that “effective enforcement is therefore indispensable for the proper functioning of the international IP system.”

The European Union said the ACE’s 18^th session “once again highlighted how infringement of Intellectual Property rights undermines economic development, innovation, employment, while also posing risk to the environment, global public health and consumer safety,” and considered it “of paramount importance to maintain the focus of discussions on Intellectual Property enforcement.” Its own presentation, it noted, showed that “effective measures to combat counterfeiting and piracy do not necessarily require substantive legislative changes.”

The United Kingdom, also with Group B, made “IP infringement socially unacceptable” its stated ambition, while affirming that “in line with the Development Agenda recommendation 45, it is right that enforcement should support innovation, investment and economic growth while taking account of national development priorities, legal traditions, flexibilities and the broader public interest.”

Spain, the Republic of Korea, Serbia, Ukraine and the Russian Federation in their national capacity reported national anti-counterfeiting operations, site-blocking measures and awareness campaigns.

The United States entered the sharpest jurisdictional objection, though aimed in a different direction from the developing countries. It recalled that the General Assembly “at its 28th session established ACE to be in charge of global enforcement issues ... and limited to technical assistance and coordination only in the field of enforcement,” and “note[d] with significant regret the unfortunate attempts by certain Member States to inappropriately change the Committee's substantive scope beyond its established mandate.” The “ACE mandate clearly does not include genetic resources, traditional knowledge or any other issues outside the enforcement of industrial property and copyright,” it said, requesting “that the Secretariat not accept any submissions or contributions from Member States that are outside the ACE mandate found in document WO/GA/28/7.”

Third World Network (TWN) tracked the 18^th session's record against the Committee's founding mandate. It recalled “that the ACE exists under Development Agenda Recommendation 45, which requires that enforcement be approached 'in the context of broader societal interests and especially development-oriented concerns',” and stated plainly that “the eighteenth session's record sits uneasily with that mandate.”

The core of the TWN intervention was an argument from the record's own silences. Work programme item C – “the exchange on legislative assistance that takes into account 'the flexibilities, the level of development... and the possible abuse of enforcement procedures'”, “received no contributions or interventions whatsoever (paragraph 9).” It was single agenda item “designed to safeguard developing countries' policy space and guard against the abuse of enforcement drew silence, while thirty-three presentations advanced ever-expanding enforcement.”

TWN further stated that the measures advanced, “Dynamic blocking injunctions, DNS and IP blocking, intermediary liability and criminal enforcement”, many introduced by industry observers such as the Motion Picture Association and IFPI [the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry], extend well beyond the minimum standards of the TRIPS Agreement.

It reminded that the “Article 41 [of TRIPs] requires that enforcement procedures avoid barriers to legitimate trade and provide safeguards against their abuse; those safeguards were largely absent.”

From that is derived a central claim: “This is how enforcement becomes a backdoor to TRIPS-plus obligations: measures never agreed multilaterally are normalised as 'best practice,' narrowing the policy space that TRIPS and the Doha Declaration deliberately preserve.” TWN closed by urging “the ACE to return enforcement to its development mandate.”