Agenda items have appeared to move swiftly in the first days of this week’s World Intellectual Property Organization annual assembly, but tricky issues are being left for later and actively discussed in informal consultations. Examples of ongoing discussions are the programme and budget discussion, governance of the organisation, and the definition of development expenditures under the budget.
Other outstanding issues include whether to hold diplomatic conferences – high-level treaty negotiations – on industrial designs and, separately, an instrument or instruments on the protection of genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore. Also in consultation is the proposal to create new external offices in various countries, and the upcoming work of the committee on copyright.
The WIPO General Assembly is meeting from 23 September to 2 October and will decide on the activities, finance and policies of the organisation for the next biennium 2014-2015.
WIPO members have been steadily working through the agenda, with a number of decisions taken, mostly items already discussed and agreed during the September session of the Program and Budget Committee (PBC).
Among them was the programme and performance report (PPR), which was approved with India underlining that the PPR is a self-assessment report provided by the secretariat and that member states comments should be reflected in the PPR as an annex.
Global Challenges Division under Scrutiny
The Indian delegate also mentioned programme 18 of the programme and budget, on the global challenges division.
The division addresses health, food security and climate change, which are critical issues, the delegate said, and no discussion is taking place in any WIPO committee as to the nature of the programme. India asked that “proper discussions” be carried out in one of the WIPO committees to guide the programme and to benefit from it. Brazil concurred on the need to take account of comments and concerns of member states on the self-assessing nature of the report. An addendum to the report containing comments by member states was published by the secretariat.
Cost efficiency measures were approved with the United States calling for overall expenditures not to exceed a 3 percent increase over the next biennium and South Africa saying that cost efficiency measures should not impact technical assistance and development expenditures.
Also approved were the capital master plan, the financing of long-term employee benefits, and the progress report on the new conference hall project. WIPO confirmed that the project will be completed within the allocated budget. The secretariat also said that WIPO would operate the new premises for one year and then would consider their utilisation by outside entities, a possible revenue source for WIPO.
Language Policy Costly for Some, Crucial for Others
The progress report on the implementation of WIPO language policy gave way to some discussions as some countries were concerned with the substantial rise in translation costs after the implementation of the WIPO language policy adopted in 2011, and including translation of committee documents into the six official United Nations languages.
This language policy also includes the extension of the translation into the six languages of WIPO working groups, not implemented yet. The US expressed concern that the resources put to the language policy could compete with other activities of importance in WIPO.
A number of developing countries said translations are very important and allow member states to engage in discussions on an equal footing and to better interact. The General Assembly adopted the Program and Budget Committee (PBC) recommendations on the matter (IPW, WIPO, 16 September 2013).
WIPO Strategic Realignment Completed
Also adopted was the final report on the implementation of the WIPO Strategic Realignment Program (SRP). Director General Francis Gurry gave a summary of the origin of this programme in answer to some concerns by the Development Agenda Group, delivered in their opening statement.
He said the roots of the programme originally come from a 2005 UN Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) recommendation to conduct a desk-to-desk assessment at WIPO (IPW, WIPO, 7 June 2005). The programme was later set up combining the JIU recommendations and the new objectives for the organisations approved by the PBC in 2008 (when Gurry took office). The SRP was undertaken over the course of the last five years, Gurry said. It was extensive, “closely monitored” by member states, the WIPO Independent Advisory Oversight Committee, and provided periodic reports to the PBC and the General Assembly, he said. He added that the SRP included 19 initiatives around four WIPO core values: service orientation; working as one; accountability for results; and environmental, social and governance responsibility.
The Brazilian delegation, Gurry said, requested that a sentence be added to the paragraph 5 of the report (scope of the SRP) in relation of the value of service orientation, which he read aloud, stating: “The concept of service orientation implemented by the SRP encompasses the understanding that WIPO provides diverse services to a wide range of stakeholders first and foremost as a United Nations specialised agencies to its member states.” He said WIPO had no difficulty in inserting that sentence.
Brazil, on behalf of the DAG, said the group had “great confusion “on the meaning of service orientation and the insertion of the text is aimed at clarifying the notion and provide a clear understanding that “member states are the driving force in the organisation.”
The budgetary process applied to projects proposed by the Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP) for the implementation of the 2007 Development Agenda Recommendations was also adopted, following the PBC recommendations.
Still to Come
The discussion on the WIPO governance was pushed to a later stage. In the last PBC meeting, the African Group submitted a proposal on the subject, but the discussion was left to the General Assembly.
Also kept for later, the discussion on a new definition [pdf] of development expenditures which did not achieve consensus at the PBC meeting earlier in the month. A number of developing countries would like to revise the definition of development expenditures, as proposed by the chair of the PBC, Hisham Badr of Egypt. Developed countries did not concur at the last PBC meeting.