UNESCO Approves Palestinian Membership; US Faces Decision

Published on 31 October 2011 @ 9:22 pm

By William New, Intellectual Property Watch

Members of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) today approved Palestine as a member state, a move expected to force the United States to choose between withdrawal from UN agencies including the World Intellectual Property Organization, or removing a national law preventing the US from funding and participating in any organization with Palestine as a member.

The vote was 107 votes in favour of admission and 14 votes against, with 52 abstentions, according to UNESCO. Palestine must now sign and ratify UNESCO’s constitution. When it does so, it will automatically be able to join WIPO and other UN agencies. Questions arise for US involvement in the World Health Organization and International Telecommunication Union (which decides global spectrum use among other things).

US withdrawal is expected to hurt UNESCO’s funding but not WIPO’s, which is funded mostly by fees for its services. The biggest loss would likely be for the United States, which risks US leadership and participation in global decision-making bodies (IPW, United Nations, 21 October 2011).

The UNESCO announcement is here.

[Update:] the Inter Press Service had a blog post yesterday explaining some of the underlying politics of the US decision to immediately suspend its payment of dues to UNESCO.

The US State Department released this statement below today, following a meeting with key US technology companies, confirming the potentially negative impact on US participation at WIPO:

WIPO Briefing

Taken Question
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
October 31, 2011
______________________________________

Question: Did the State Department brief business representatives on UNESCO’s decision to admit Palestine as a full member?

Answer: Today senior USG officials from State and the US Patent and Trademark Office briefed representatives from leading U.S. industries on today’s vote at UNESCO and the implications that vote might have for Palestinian accession to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
During the meeting, Assistant Secretary of State Esther Brimmer underscored U.S. concern that Palestinian membership in WIPO could have serious implications for U.S. leadership in this organization, which supports the global IPR infrastructure and helps U.S. companies protect their intellectual property around the world. The United States is a leading global voice on issues related to patent, copyright, and trademark matters, and should the U.S. be unable to provide its contributions to WIPO, the impact of that voice could be significantly diminished.

In attendance were representatives from a wide range of U.S. businesses and industries, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Software Alliance, and United States Council for International Business. The State Department will also brief a number of civil society groups, including NGO’s with a particular interest in UNESCO.

PRN: 2011/1843

The State Department also released this general statement:

Palestinian Admission to UNESCO

Press Statement
Victoria Nuland
Department Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
October 31, 2011

________________________________________
Today’s vote by the member states of UNESCO to admit Palestine as a member is regrettable, premature, and undermines our shared goal of a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in the Middle East. The United State remains steadfast in its support for the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state, but such a state can only be realized through direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.

The United States also remains strongly committed to robust multilateral engagement across the UN system. However, Palestinian membership as a state in UNESCO triggers longstanding legislative restrictions which will compel the United States to refrain from making contributions to UNESCO.
U.S. engagement with UNESCO serves a wide range of our national interests on education, science, culture, and communications issues. The United States will maintain its membership in and commitment to UNESCO and we will consult with Congress to ensure that U.S. interests and influence are preserved.

PRN: 2011/1844

William New may be reached at wnew@ip-watch.ch.

Categories: Copyright Policy, Development, English, Human Rights, Patent Policy, Trademarks/Geographical Indications/Domains, US Policy, United Nations, WIPO

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Comments

UNESCO Creates Fund For Budget Shortfall After US Withholds Dues | Intellectual Property Watch says:
11 November 2011 at 12:09 am
[...] The plan was announced today by UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova, in a speech to the UNESCO General Conference. The United States suspended its 2011 dues, some $65 million, after a majority of UNESCO member states voted to admit Palestine as a full member (IPW, United Nations, 31 October 2011). [...]

We welcome your participation in article and blog comment threads, and other discussion forums, where we encourage you to analyse and react to the content available on the Intellectual Property Watch website. By participating in discussions or reader forums, or by submitting opinion pieces or comments to articles, blogs, reviews or multimedia features, you are consenting to these rules.

By participating in discussions or reader forums, or by submitting opinion pieces or comments to articles, blogs, reviews or multimedia features, you are consenting to these rules.

1. You agree that you are fully responsible for the content that you post. You will not knowingly post content that violates the copyright, trademark, patent or other intellectual property right of any third party or which you know is under a confidentiality obligation preventing its publication and that you will request removal of the same should you discover that you have violated this provision. Likewise, you may not post content that is libelous, defamatory, obscene, abusive, that violates a third party's right to privacy, that otherwise violates any applicable local, state, national or international law, that amounts to spamming or that is otherwise inappropriate. You may not post content that degrades others on the basis of gender, race, class, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual preference, disability or other classification. Epithets and other language intended to intimidate or to incite violence are also prohibited. Furthermore, you may not impersonate others.

2. You understand and agree that Intellectual Property Watch is not responsible for any content posted by you or third parties. You further understand that IP Watch does not monitor the content posted. Nevertheless, IP Watch may monitor the any user-generated content as it chooses and reserves the right to remove, edit or otherwise alter content that it deems inappropriate for any reason whatever without consent nor notice. We further reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to remove a user's privilege to post content on our site. IP Watch is not in any manner endorsing the content of the discussion forums and cannot and will not vouch for its reliability or otherwise accept liability for it.

3. By submitting any contribution to IP Watch, you warrant that your contribution is your own original work and that you have the right to make it available to IP Watch for all purposes and you agree to indemnify IP Watch, its directors, employees and agents against all damages, legal fees and others expenses that may be incurred by IP Watch as a result of your breach of warranty or of these terms.

4. You further agree not to publish any personal information about yourself or anyone else (for example telephone number or home address). If you add a comment to a blog, be aware that your email address will be apparent.

5. IP Watch will not be liable for any loss including but not limited to the following (whether such losses are foreseen, known or otherwise): loss of data, loss of revenue or anticipated profit, loss of business, loss of opportunity, loss of goodwill or injury to reputation, losses suffered by third parties, any indirect, consequential or exemplary damages.

6. You understand and agree that the discussion forums are to be used only for non-commercial purposes. You may not solicit funds, promote commercial entities or otherwise engage in commercial activity in our discussion forums.

7. You acknowledge and agree that you use and/or rely on any information obtained through the discussion forums at your own risk.

8. For any content that you post, you hereby grant to IP Watch the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, exclusive and fully sub-licensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part, world-wide and to incorporate it in other works, in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.

9. These terms and your posts and contributions shall be governed and interpreted in accordance with the laws of Switzerland (without giving effect to conflict of laws principles thereof) and any dispute exclusively settled by the Courts of the Canton of Geneva.

UNESCO Approves Palestinian Membership; US Faces Decision

Related Articles:

Comments

Leave a Reply