New Guide To WIPO Governance

A new publication offering an overview of the World Intellectual Property Organization governance system seeks to contribute to ongoing debates on the organisation’s governance, according to its author.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO): A Reference Guide, is authored by Carolyn Deere Birkbeck, senior researcher at the Global Economic Governance Programme at the University of Oxford. Deere Birkbeck is also founder of Intellectual Property Watch.

According to the introduction, “the starting point for the Reference Guide is that the growing importance and influence of WIPO’s expanding work must be accompanied by more active and constructive engagement of governments, stakeholders and scholars with the organisation, and more critical oversight of its activities.”

To date, there is no consolidated reference text on WIPO’s governance, writes the author, who adds that the book is intended to serve as a factual reference guide to WIPO’s governance system, without attempting “to assess WIPO’s governance system, analyse the political dynamics of WIPO’s governance, or critique the power politics that shape them.”

The book is offered “as a constructive contribution to greater transparency and to ongoing debates on WIPO’s governance. It is the first comprehensive effort to draw together the background information that all interested actors need as they work to understand WIPO’s complex governance system, where it falls short and how to improve it,” Deere Birkbeck said in an interview.

The book looks into WIPO’s legal foundations, mandate and purpose; its decision-making structure, processes and practices; financial arrangements and its Program and Budget Committee; mechanisms for control, oversight and accountability of the WIPO Secretariat; and the UN agency’s external relations and transparency policy.

According to Deere Birkbeck, as a follow up to the Reference Guide, her second book on WIPO – on the history of WIPO’s governance, the politics of reform debates, and forward-looking proposals, is expected to be published by Routledge later this year.

 

Image Credits: Edward Elgar Publishing