Draft WIPO Instrument On Genetic Resources Shows Lists Of Options

A new draft document was issued yesterday by a drafting group of experts at the World Intellectual Property Organization. The drafting group was in charge of cleaning up a text with aspirations to become a draft international instrument on the protection of genetic resources, and added a number of options for a possible treaty.

The new 11-page document [pdf] presents objectives and principles of the potential treaty text. A number of options are available for each objective, each objective has principles, which also show a list of options.

The Third Intersessional Working Group (IWG 3) of the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) is meeting from 28 February – 4 March. Country experts are gathered to try to produce a document that would be a basis for negotiations towards a legal instrument on the protection of genetic resources at the 18th session of the IGC from 9-13 May.

The experts were working from a previous draft text issued Tuesday, which was itself the result of work in a plenary session on an original document drawn from a submission made at the 17th session of the IGC in December by Australia, Canada, Japan, Norway, New Zealand and the United States, as amended by the African Group, according to sources. (IPW, WIPO, 1 March 2011)

A smaller drafting group this week was called on to clarify and confirm the relevance of the objectives and principles in the context of the IGC mandate and terms of reference.

For example, the first option of objectives reads: ”ensure those accessing genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge comply with specific conditions for access, use and benefit-sharing under national law.” The second option introduces prior informed consent, the third option includes derivatives of genetic resources.

Derivatives have been the subject of much discussion, according to sources, with some experts saying that derivatives were not in the mandate of the IGC. They appear throughout the different options of the new text.

The number of options varies between four and 11 throughout the document.

Yesterday, experts went through this new text and submitted comments some of which were characterised by the meeting Chair José López de León of Mexico as more political than technical, according to sources.