WIPO Development Agenda Negotiation Hits Rocks

Negotiations for the infusion of a stronger development mandate into the work of the World Intellectual Property Organization may have hit a wall today after key proponent governments called for an end to talks to protest unfair treatment of their proposals.

If over for now, the issue would be passed to the WIPO General Assembly, the annual highest-level meeting of its member states, which convenes in September. The Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda (PCDA) is scheduled to meet from 26-30 June and must make a recommendation to the assembly.

The disruption came after Paraguayan Ambassador Rigoberto Gauto Vielman, chair of the PCDA, put forward a proposal for a committee recommendation to the General Assembly. Brazil and Argentina, the originators of the 2004 proposal for a development agenda that has been formally backed by 13 other Friends of Development countries, reacted strongly to what they perceived as a totally imbalanced proposal favouring their opponents, particularly the United States and the rest of the Group B developed countries.

“We think it is insulting to the proponents of a development agenda to see such a biased procedure,” the lead Brazilian delegate said after the closed-door meeting broke. The recommendation to the General Assembly should be that “no agreement was reached in this meeting,” he said.

The Argentine delegate said instructions were given from the capital to “stop this process” out of disagreement with it. Another complaint was that meetings no longer be held in informal settings, as has been largely the case this week, but rather that agreements be reached transparently in the formal setting of the plenary meeting.

A number of developing countries, such as the Asian Group, signalled a desire to continue discussions on the development agenda, according to participants. Switzerland also showed support for continuing and mentioned the expense of holding such meetings, sources said.

Delegations were to reconvene on Thursday late afternoon, but none appeared optimistic that the talks would continue. Gauto Vielman told Intellectual Property Watch that he is “very pessimistic.”

The chair’s proposal, which contained 34 proposals, was seen as containing almost entirely proposals that had been supported by the United States. The Friends of Development had issued a different proposal for an outcome at the start of the week that appeared to be ignored, despite their repeated attempts to refer to it in the meeting, sources said. They insisted their proposal was intended in good faith and drew from all others, but it was privately spurned by US negotiators and others.

The meeting started somewhat slowly, according to participants. No agreement on how to proceed could be reached at the outset, so the first three days were spent reviewing the proposals in six clusters by themes inherited from the last meeting of the committee in February (IPW, WIPO, 24 February 2006).

The clusters, which reflect over 100 proposals by different countries, are: A) technical assistance and capacity building; B) norm-setting, flexibilities, public policy and public domain; technology transfer, C) information and communication technology, and access to knowledge; D) assessments, evaluation and impact studies; E) institutional matters, including mandate and governance; and F) other issues.

Countries offered their views on the clusters, which apparently led to the disputed chair’s proposal.