Original news and analysis on international IP policy
An independent, UN-led multistakeholder group today issued strong recommendations on ways to improve ongoing global efforts to address HIV/AIDS. Among them - serious questions about the current intellectual property rights system.
The United Nations Human Rights Council last week adopted a resolution promoting cultural rights and diversity, with a commitment to hold a seminar next year on the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications. The resolution includes continuing support for a special observer on the issue who recently submitted a report raising questions about the impact of intellectual property rights on the diffusion of knowledge.
The UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU) today announced it will hold a high-level meeting on the global surge in standards-related patent litigation which it said is stifling innovation in information and communications technology.
The United Nations Human Rights Council has adopted a new resolution on the promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the internet. The resolution ties such rights to development, and is said to be the first UN resolution to put online human rights on par with those offline.
A key committee of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing treaty aimed at ensuring fair sharing of the benefits of genetic resources is meeting this week in New Delhi.
A little-known United Nations office fighting illicit drugs and counterfeit goods globally appears to be building a programme of private sector donations for its anti-counterfeiting work.
World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chan was re-elected for another term at the annual May World Health Assembly. Now the WHO has issued a "report card" showing how she kept her promises during the first term. This includes a range of steps to ensure new drugs are affordable and accessible, even if intellectual property rights make them high-priced.
RIO DE JANEIRO - Many of the technologies that can make the world more sustainable are available today. But how to transfer such green technologies to those most in need of them remains a question on which there are starkly divergent views - even after last week’s much-anticipated Rio+20 leaders’ summit.
The UN International Telecommunication Union is conducting constructive and potentially lucrative negotiations to update global telecommunications regulations, but the message keeps getting garbled in public fora, ITU officials said.
The freedom to access the internet does not translate into freedom of expression in many countries of the world, including in western economies, according to speakers at a peer forum organised yesterday by the United States mission to the United Nations in Geneva.
UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Secretary General Hamadoun Touré today in Geneva announced he would propose to the ITU Council later this month to make the draft documents for the much-debated International Telecommunication Regulations (ITR) publicly accessible. The effort could help diminish some of the hype in the United States about an effort by the UN to increase control of the internet.
According to local press reports, the former director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization, Kamil Idris, was arrested by security forces last week in Sudan on unknown charges.