<h2 class="posttitle">
US, WIPO Training Programme On IP Rights In Africa Comes Under Fire </h2>
<small><a href="http://www.ip-watch.org/2012/02/12/us-wipo-training-programme-on-ip-rights-in-africa-comes-under-fire/?utm_source=post&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alerts">http://www.ip-watch.org/2012/02/12/us-wipo-training-programme-on-ip-rights-in-africa-comes-under-fire/?utm_source=post&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alerts</a><br>
<br>Published on 12 February 2012 @ 12:43 pm</small>
<p>By <a href="http://www.ip-watch.org/author/william/" title="Posts by William New" rel="author">William New</a>, Intellectual Property Watch</p>
<p>For years, some developing countries have insisted that
developed countries – which own the vast majority of intellectual
property rights – take a singular focus when it comes to offering
technical assistance on IP rights: the protection of “northern”
property. In recent years, negotiations in venues like the World
Intellectual Property Organization have sought to ensure that such
assistance also highlights the creation of local IP rights as well as
the availability of flexibilities developing countries have under
international rules for IP. <span id="more-19475"></span></p>
<p>Now a three-day conference on IP enforcement being planned for April
in Cape Town, South Africa by mostly northern interests has stirred old
tensions and seemingly confirmed past fears of developing countries. </p>
<p>“It’s as if the last five years didn’t happen – no WIPO Development
Agenda, no discussion on copyright limitations and exceptions, no
proposals in favour of libraries and archives, education, blind and
visually impaired people,” said Teresa Hackett, Electronic Information
for Libraries (EIFL). “But they did happen, and we will work to ensure
that delegates attending the African IP Forum hear a diversity of
opinion and perspective, and have the opportunity to debate these issues
that are critically important to libraries in Africa and around the
world.”</p>
<p>The 3-5 April conference entitled, Africa Intellectual Property
Forum: Intellectual Property, Regional Integration and Economic Growth
in Africa, is being organised by the US Department of Commerce Office of
General Counsel Commercial Law Development Program. It is touted as the
first Africa-wide ministerial-level event of its kind. The office could
not be reached for comment on this story. </p>
<p>The official <a href="http://www.cldp.doc.gov/programs/Africa-intellectual-property-forum">website is here</a>. An apparently later draft programme of the summit posted by Knowledge Ecology International is <a href="http://keionline.org/node/1351">here</a>. </p>
<p>The conference might have been better received if billed as an
outright enforcement and anti-counterfeiting event. There are some
panels and speakers whose focus is local innovation, local brand
development, and locally appropriate practices. But the majority of the
panels have a focus on enforcement and protection, and are studded with
speakers from developed country governments and industry whose focus is
the same. </p>
<p>This came as a slap in the face for non-governmental organisations
who work on helping the global South grow their domestic economies by
localising tools such as intellectual property rights. Many have viewed
with hope and a little doubt the 2007 World Intellectual Property
Organization Development Agenda, which consisted of 45 agreed
recommendations intended to more fully incorporate the development
dimension into WIPO activities – particularly technical assistance. The
South Africa agenda may appear to many as a throw-back to the days
before the Development Agenda existed, and may contain the underlying
motive of encouraging strong IP legislation in those countries. </p>
<p>Developing countries readily admit the urgent need for help in
fighting a preponderance of counterfeit products flooding across their
borders. And developed countries have a legitimate interest in trying to
address the problem, which usually involves knock-offs of their goods. </p>
<p>But the debates of the past few years at WIPO, the World Health
Organization and the World Trade Organization have demonstrated the
strong desire of developing countries to tailor actions to their local
situations, and not have them be top-down. Among the tools available to
developing countries is to not apply IP rights in certain cases, for
instance. Among other effects, this can allow the production of cheaper
versions of products, and cheaper legitimate versions can squeeze the
market for counterfeits. </p>
<p>Swell of Opposition </p>
<p>A 7 February <a href="http://www.ghwatch.org/sites/www.ghwatch.org/files/AfricaIPSummit2012_0207.pdf">letter</a>
[pdf] to WIPO Director General Francis Gurry, signed by a least 100
NGOs from around the world, calls for the summit to be scrapped
altogether over conflicts of interest and the lack of a development and
public interest dimension. </p>
<p>A particular concern of NGOs is that the conference will advance
anti-counterfeiting legislation across Africa that will lead to damaging
restrictions to the local populations and economies. They also raised
alarm that the conference does not appear to include discussion on how
to use the hard-won flexibilities that developing countries are allowed
to employ so as not to apply IP rights if not in their national
interest. </p>
<p>“It is worrying to see that a major event such as an Africa-wide
forum is being co-organised in partnership with US, France and Japan,”
the letter said. “These governments are known for advocating their TRIPS
plus agendas in developing countries in the interests of their own
industries and priorities.” </p>
<p>“WIPO being an intergovernmental and a specialized agency of the UN
must take immediate measures to ensure that all its activities are
evidence based, free of conflicts of interest and undue influence of
actors that are known to promote an unbalanced IP agenda.” </p>
<p>A key point is that concern over substandard, poor quality medicines
is separate from counterfeit medicines and is not in the responsibility
of WIPO, but rather the WHO. There have been accusations from some
countries in recent years that the counterfeit drug problem is being
used to interfere with the market for legitimate generic medicines. </p>
<p>The NGOs also demanded more transparency and inclusiveness in the
process of developing a conference. The event is being organised by the
US government, but WIPO is named as a co-coordinator and there are
proposals in the agenda for many WIPO officials to be on the panels. It
appears that even the officials from Africa are being selected by the
northern organisers, and the criteria for acceptance to participate in
the conference are not posted on the website. </p>
<p>Event sponsor the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)-Business
Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy (BASCAP) by contrast holds
separate industry-focussed events at other times and while they are
critiqued, there is little question about their purpose or message.
There have been questions about WIPO’s involvement in those meetings,
however. </p>
<p>This week, several NGOs, such as KEI, Oxfam and Public Citizen, <a href="http://keionline.org/node/1353">wrote</a>
to Cameron Forbes Kerry, the General Counsel for the U.S. Department of
Commerce, requesting a review of Sout Africa conference “to see if the
sponsorship of the event violates Executive Order 13155, on Access to
HIV/AIDS Pharmaceuticals and Medical Technologies,” which they said “was
issued by President Clinton on May 10, 2000 after an extensive review
of U.S. trade policy as it related to access to patented medicines in
sub-Saharan Africa.” </p>
<p>That executive order says that “the United States shall not seek,
through negotiation or otherwise, the revocation or revision of any
intellectual property law or policy” that undermines “access to HIV/AIDS
pharmaceuticals or medical technologies,” as long as the countries are
within the norms of the TRIPS agreement, according to the groups. </p>
<p>NGO Reactions</p>
<p>A host of NGO comments were circulated this week. </p>
<p>“The proposed agenda for the Africa WIPO Summit clearly shows that
the summit is being used as a vehicle to drive the agenda of the US, the
EU and the pharmaceutical industry to ramp up protection and
enforcement of intellectual property,” said Catherine Tomlinson of the
Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa. “We urge ours and other
African governments to reject the proposed agenda.” </p>
<p>Moses Mulumba of the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development
in Uganda said: “It’s a shame that the Africa IP Forum is putting
emphasis on IP enforcement agenda. One would expect the continent to be
discussing the Development Agenda in light of its social economic
challenges in the areas of health, education and agriculture. Over
emphasis on IP enforcement is iniquitous of the continent’s population
that still badly needs to utilise the policy space provided for by the
TRIPS Agreement.” </p>
<p>Andrew Rens, a South African IP specialist and a researcher at Duke
University (US), said: “In the years since TRIPS the single most
important issue involving intellectual property for Africans has been
gaining access to medicines. There is no track nor even a single session
on access to medicines.” There also is no session on copyright
exceptions for education, despite the South African government being a
proponent of these in international negotiations, he said. </p>
<p>Jeremy Malcolm of Consumers International said: “Such a forum will be
seen by all not as a bona fide attempt at open discussion on the pros
and cons of robust intellectual property protection in the African
context, but rather as a cynical effort by foreign governments and
multinational corporations to control the framing of these issues for
African policy-makers.”</p>
<p>Sangeeta Shashikant, legal advisor at the Third World Network, said:
“The US is well known for pressuring developing countries to adopt TRIPS
plus standards. The Africa IP Summit is another attempt by the US to
advance its aggressive agenda on IP protection and enforcement such as
Anti-Counterfeit Agreement (ACTA), that favours the interests of certain
powerful multinational companies. The US concept paper and programme
totally disregards the numerous developmental and socio-economic
challenges facing Africa. Issues of access to affordable medicines,
access to knowledge, misappropriation of genetic resources and
associated traditional knowledge, farmers’ rights are totally
disregarded. Equally absent is a discussion on the value of public
interest flexibilities in the IP system to achieve developmental
objectives and address social needs. The US agenda is clear. It is about
not about development. It is about protecting the interests of its
companies, many of which are sponsoring the meeting, proliferating IP
propaganda and misinformation. Unless steps are taken to fully reflect
development and public interest considerations, and to eliminate actors
only interested in an anti-development agenda, the event should not go
ahead.” </p>
<p>Prof. Brook Baker of Northeastern University law school and Health
GAP, said: It is deeply problematic that the Obama administration
continues to pursue efforts to strengthen, widen, and lengthen patent,
data, and copyright monopolies in African countries that desperately
need expanded access to medicines, educational materials, and climate
control technologies and that it simultaneously seeks even stronger
enforcement of IP protections than what is currently required under
international law. Carrying the policy portfolio of Big Pharma and
other IP-based multinationals under the guise of addressing Africa’s
needs, the proposed African IP Summit is a chilling example of US
duplicity and conflict of interest at its worst. However, it is equally
problematic if Africa leaders and policy makers, some of whom are
already complicit with the US agenda, continue to drink the IP KoolAid
as they’ve done with proposed anti-counterfeiting legislation and with
their long-lasting lethargy in amending their IP laws to take full
advantage of TRIPS flexibilities and thereafter to use those
flexibilities to access medicines and other essential technologies.” </p>
<p>The Open Society Foundation blogged about the event, cautioning developing countries about “US propaganda”, <a href="http://blog.soros.org/2012/02/africa-should-be-wary-of-u-s-propaganda-on-intellectual-property/">here</a>. Global Health Watch also posted about the event, <a href="http://www.ghwatch.org/africa-IP-summit">here</a>. </p>