[governance] Africa IP Summit: Sign On letter to WIPO

Tue Jan 31 10:22:35 EST 2012

Dear All,

The US government is planning to hold in April an Africa IP Summit in
partnership with Japan, France, and WIPO. South Africa is hosting this
meeting. The private sector (ICC, BASCAP,Pfizer, Eli Lily et al) is
sponsoring this meeting.This Summit aims to have at least 600 participants
from the government, private sector, creative industry etc.The main focus of
this Summit is enhanced IP protection and enforcement particularly on
counterfeiting and piracy. Clearly this is a platform for US, Japan France
to promote the TRIPS plus plus agendas seen in ACTA, TPPA, EPA etc, and this
Summit will be promoting more anti-counterfeiting bills in Africa. If you
are interested in more details see the US government site
www.cldp.doc.gov/category/countries-and.../sub-saharan-africa.

The Commercial Law Department Programme of the US department of commerce is
organising this summit.

We think it is important to raise some concern over this event. So we have
drafted a letter to WIPO. See below.

If you are interested to sign on to the letter, pls send me the name of your
organisation and contact details to sangeeta at twnetwork.org or
ssangeeta at myjaring.net
by Thursday, 2nd February.

Regards
Sangeeta Shashikant
Third World Network
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Mr. Francis Gurry
Director General
World Intellectual Property Organization
Africa IP Summit: Lacking a Development Dimension
Dear Mr. Gurry,
In 2004, the WIPO Development Agenda was launched amidst significant
concerns that WIPO¹s activities lacked a development dimension, undermined
public interest, while promoting the interests of IP holders. The
Development Agenda received widespread global support leading to the
adoption of 45 Development Agenda recommendations in 2007.
We believe that at the core of these recommendations is the need for WIPO to
ensure that a balanced and evidence based agenda on intellectual property is
promoted taking into account the different levels of development and public
interest considerations. Principles of transparency and avoiding of
conflicts of interests also underpin these recommendations.
In view of this, we note with significant disappointment and concern the
context in which the upcoming Africa IP Summit will be held. Some key
concerns are:
 Conflicts of Interest: 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. These governments are known for advocating TRIPS plus agendas in
developing countries in the interests of their own industries and
priorities. For instance these countries are proponents of the
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a plurilateral treaty that is
widely criticized for its secret negotiating process and the detrimental
impact on public interest issues such as access to medicines, freedom of
expression over the internet and access to knowledge. One key aim of the
treaty is to export these problematic IP enforcement standards to developing
countries.
These countries also promote TRIPS plus standards through Free Trade
Agreements such as through the Economic Partnership Agreements, and the
recent Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations. It is widely known that the
different TRIPS plus standards advocated to, and in many cases imposed on to
developing countries, will have devastating consequences for development
including on access to affordable medicines, freedom of expression over the
internet and access to knowledge. These standards are imposed to ³kick away
the ladder² for developing countries and to protect the interests of certain
influential domestic actors.  In view of this, WIPO¹s partnership with these
countries to host an Africa wide IP Summit amounts to conflict of interests
and is simply unacceptable.
To make matters worse the Summit is being sponsored by the private sector in
particular the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), Business Action to
Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy (BASCAP), Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Company etc.,
that clearly have a strong stake in a pro-IP protection and enforcement
agenda . The involvement of the private sector also raises issues of
conflict of interests.
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 interests and undue influence of actors that are known
to promote an unbalanced IP agenda.
Lacking a development and public interest dimension: The Africa IP Summit
concept paper suggests a programme that undermines the spirit of Development
Agenda. It is premised on the notion that heightened IP protection and
enforcement will deliver development and protect public interest. This
distorted approach has no historical or empirical basis and has been clearly
rejected by the Development Agenda process. Important development issues
such as the different levels of development, the importance of flexibilities
(e.g. LDC transition periods, exceptions and limitations (e.g. parallel
importation, compulsory licensing,) in meeting developmental objectives,
examining and addressing the impact of IP on critical public interests
issues such as access to affordable medicines, and access to knowledge,
appear to be disregarded.
Even more worrying is that the Summit aims to promote the link between IP
enforcement and public health and safety, presumably to frighten people into
accepting inappropriate standards of IP enforcement agenda.  We stress that
an IP enforcement framework will not deliver effective public health
protection as IP rights are not granted on the basis of the quality and
safety of the product. Instead inappropriate standards of IP enforcement are
likely to hinder public health such as access to affordable medicines. This
has been amply demonstrated by the many seizures of quality generic
medicines in transit at various European ports.
Lobbying by some multinational companies and their developed country
governments in linking IP enforcement to public health has led to a
proliferation of anti-counterfeiting bills in many African countries as well
as at the regional level, most notably in East Africa. The enactment of
these bills is usually promoted on public health grounds. However in reality
these bills are only about protecting the rights of IP holders and are in
fact ³TRIPS plus plus² in so many ways, containing provisions that undermine
flexibilities and that are detrimental to national developmental objectives
such as building local production capacity, scaling up access to affordable
medicines and improving access to knowledge. For example, most of these
bills define ³Counterfeit² products as being substantially similar or
identical to IP protected products, which effectively makes every generic
pharmaceutical a counterfeit. In Kenya, enactment of the Anti-Counterfeit
Act 2008 has been challenged by people living with HIV/AIDS on the grounds
that enforcement and application of the Act will deny them access to
affordable essential medicines and thus deny their Right to Life.
Noting the controversies surrounding these bills, it is inappropriate for
WIPO to be championing the strengthening of IP enforcement on alleged public
health grounds. 
Further we stress that addressing the issue of substandard, poor quality
medicines (also often labeled as ³counterfeit medicines²) is not within the
mandate of WIPO but a responsibility of the World Health Organization.
Dealing with the problem of ³counterfeit medicines² requires a focus not on
IP enforcement but on building regulatory capacity and ensuring access to
affordable medicines.  A process is already underway at the WHO to address
this. Apart from medicines, it is also not within WIPO¹s mandate to deal
with other poor quality, substandard products thus it is surprising that the
Africa IP Summit is heavily focused on this issue.
Lack of Transparency & Information: According to available information, the
WIPO and African regional IP organizations are key partners in the
organization of the Africa IP Summit. However to date there appears to be no
information available on WIPO¹s website about this Summit. This undermines
implementation of the Development Agenda recommendation on transparency.
Further the US government website[1] <#_ftn1> states that registration
request will not guarantee participation and that the participants will be
selected. However no information is being provided on the criteria that will
be the basis for selection.
Following the above concerns, we demand that: WIPO postpone the holding of
the Africa wide IP Summit. WIPO should also reconsider its partnership with
the different interests involved and work to organize a balanced forum that
is development oriented and upholds public interests as well as that is free
of any conflicts of interests and influence of actors that tend to promote
an unbalanced IP agenda. The process of organizing such a forum, (i.e. the
selection of speakers, the drafting of the programme, criteria for selection
of participants) should be transparent and all information should be
promptly available on WIPO¹s website.  Further we also call on WIPO to avoid
partnering actors that tend to promote an unbalanced IP agenda in its future
activities.
Signatories
Consumer Association of Penang
Health Gap, USA
Third World Network

[1] <#_ftnref1>  
http://www.cldp.doc.gov/programs/Africa-intellectual-property-forum
<http://www.cldp.doc.gov/programs/Africa-intellectual-property-forum>

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