Let's Gang Up On St. Lucia!
What's that? You've been waiting your whole life to sign an obscure petition for a cause I support related to my line of work? Why, today's your lucky day!
Actually, I should clarify a bit: this petition is important and not at all obscure to the NGO's who are banning together to put it out. It just doesn't have that many non organization-affiliated citizens signing it (or ah, even aware of it).
So here's where you come in-- see this pretty picture?
It shows the ratio of signatures per population.
And how's your country doing?
Getting the tar beaten out of it because 1 measly person is a ridiculously huge percentage of St. Lucia's population? Well, aren't you going to do something about that? Don't you want to help your country win the top--
Oh? The cause?
Yeah, I suppose I could tell you a bit about that...
[Click blue-ellipsis for the rest]
Okay, so this nice organization called the EFF has a good explanation of what this is about. Which goes thusly:
>>
The WIPO Development Agenda
and Why You Should Care About It
In October 2004, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) took the historic step of agreeing to consider the impact of its decisions on developing nations — including assessing the impact of intellectual property law and policy on technological innovation, access to knowledge, and even human health.
What's at stake is much more significant than the harmony or disharmony of IP regulations.
WIPO decisions affect everything from the availability and price of AIDS drugs, to the patterns of international development, to the communications architecture of the Internet.
As part of the agreement, WIPO is holding meetings in April to discuss the "Development Agenda", endorsed by hundreds of individuals and public- interest non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including EFF and the Consumer Project on Technology (CPTech)... This is an extraordinary breakthrough.
The Development Agenda gives WIPO the opportunity to move beyond the narrow view that any and all IP protection is beneficial, and choose instead to act strategically to spur economic growth, foster innovation, and help humanity.
But here's the problem:
many of the groups that are most highly qualified to advise WIPO about these issues [are not being] allowed to participate.
Despite the fact that ad-hoc observers are regularly admitted to WIPO meetings, the WIPO International Bureau is currently limiting participation to only those NGOs with "permanent observer" status.
>>
This is a very very small proportion of NGOs and excludes some of those which were key architects in putting together the Doha Declaration (an agreement originated by developing countries which ensures that they will be able to adapt their intellectual property laws with public health concerns in mind, without being to subject to accusation from developed countries that they are violating the terms of the TRIPS international trade agreement in doing so).
Basically it seems the WIPO is limiting the representation of the developing country perspective in order to make that perspective seem like a fringe position (ie, the same way a TV political debate might feature three members of one view, versus only one member from an opposition view to give an appearance of balance while simultanesouly getting away with presenting the one dissenter as a fringe perspective). That will give the developed countries significantly more power in shaping what is supposed to be an agenda that reflects the concerns of developing countries.
In my discussions with people who were involved with petitioning WIPO to take up a "development agenda", it seems that they were initially quite optimistic when WIPO agreed to have meetings on the subject, and this turn of events, to outright exclusion of those with the most expertise on the subject, has come as quite a nasty and disillusioning shock.
They are afraid the April meeting will just be "lip-service", so that without doing anything substantive, WIPO can say "Hey, you said you wanted a meeting. Well, we followed through: we gave you a meeting."
And unfortunately this cynicism doesn't seem unwarranted: If I'm remembering the anecdote right, WHO attended a preliminary agenda-setting meeting a little while ago, at which groups naturally asked WIPO what the focus of the April meeting would be, and what particular topics were on the agenda. "We can't tell you that" was the reply. The groups in attendance sat for a second in blank disbelief, then asked, well, can you at least tell us what the mission will be? "No, we can't tell you that". Total stonewall. So far at least, the anecdotal evidence suggests that WIPO is trying to keep this meeting as content-free as possible.
A real shame, considering what a real meeting on the subject could do to make sure that developing countries won't get bullied out of using TRIPS-flexibilities (what I was talking about earlier with the Doha Declaration and public health-- hope this isn't getting too technical).
Anyway, here again is the link.
Whatever the result, you can be proud of kicking your country up a few notches in the IP-health awareness rankings.
Actually, I should clarify a bit: this petition is important and not at all obscure to the NGO's who are banning together to put it out. It just doesn't have that many non organization-affiliated citizens signing it (or ah, even aware of it).
So here's where you come in-- see this pretty picture?
It shows the ratio of signatures per population.
And how's your country doing?
Getting the tar beaten out of it because 1 measly person is a ridiculously huge percentage of St. Lucia's population? Well, aren't you going to do something about that? Don't you want to help your country win the top--
Oh? The cause?
Yeah, I suppose I could tell you a bit about that...
[Click blue-ellipsis for the rest]
Okay, so this nice organization called the EFF has a good explanation of what this is about. Which goes thusly:
>>
The WIPO Development Agenda
and Why You Should Care About It
In October 2004, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) took the historic step of agreeing to consider the impact of its decisions on developing nations — including assessing the impact of intellectual property law and policy on technological innovation, access to knowledge, and even human health.
What's at stake is much more significant than the harmony or disharmony of IP regulations.
WIPO decisions affect everything from the availability and price of AIDS drugs, to the patterns of international development, to the communications architecture of the Internet.
As part of the agreement, WIPO is holding meetings in April to discuss the "Development Agenda", endorsed by hundreds of individuals and public- interest non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including EFF and the Consumer Project on Technology (CPTech)... This is an extraordinary breakthrough.
The Development Agenda gives WIPO the opportunity to move beyond the narrow view that any and all IP protection is beneficial, and choose instead to act strategically to spur economic growth, foster innovation, and help humanity.
But here's the problem:
many of the groups that are most highly qualified to advise WIPO about these issues [are not being] allowed to participate.
Despite the fact that ad-hoc observers are regularly admitted to WIPO meetings, the WIPO International Bureau is currently limiting participation to only those NGOs with "permanent observer" status.
>>
This is a very very small proportion of NGOs and excludes some of those which were key architects in putting together the Doha Declaration (an agreement originated by developing countries which ensures that they will be able to adapt their intellectual property laws with public health concerns in mind, without being to subject to accusation from developed countries that they are violating the terms of the TRIPS international trade agreement in doing so).
Basically it seems the WIPO is limiting the representation of the developing country perspective in order to make that perspective seem like a fringe position (ie, the same way a TV political debate might feature three members of one view, versus only one member from an opposition view to give an appearance of balance while simultanesouly getting away with presenting the one dissenter as a fringe perspective). That will give the developed countries significantly more power in shaping what is supposed to be an agenda that reflects the concerns of developing countries.
In my discussions with people who were involved with petitioning WIPO to take up a "development agenda", it seems that they were initially quite optimistic when WIPO agreed to have meetings on the subject, and this turn of events, to outright exclusion of those with the most expertise on the subject, has come as quite a nasty and disillusioning shock.
They are afraid the April meeting will just be "lip-service", so that without doing anything substantive, WIPO can say "Hey, you said you wanted a meeting. Well, we followed through: we gave you a meeting."
And unfortunately this cynicism doesn't seem unwarranted: If I'm remembering the anecdote right, WHO attended a preliminary agenda-setting meeting a little while ago, at which groups naturally asked WIPO what the focus of the April meeting would be, and what particular topics were on the agenda. "We can't tell you that" was the reply. The groups in attendance sat for a second in blank disbelief, then asked, well, can you at least tell us what the mission will be? "No, we can't tell you that". Total stonewall. So far at least, the anecdotal evidence suggests that WIPO is trying to keep this meeting as content-free as possible.
A real shame, considering what a real meeting on the subject could do to make sure that developing countries won't get bullied out of using TRIPS-flexibilities (what I was talking about earlier with the Doha Declaration and public health-- hope this isn't getting too technical).
Anyway, here again is the link.
Whatever the result, you can be proud of kicking your country up a few notches in the IP-health awareness rankings.
posted by L'el at 12:11 PM
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