Thiru Balasubramaniam from the Consumer Project on Technology is taking notes at the General Assembly of the UN's World Intellectual Property Organisation. Yesterday was the opening, and it kicked off with a bang, with a group of nations (comprising the 15 original European Community states, Japan, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and some others) excoriating the Organisation for pursuing IP Rights over the other goals of WIPO such as fostering creativity and transfering technology to the world's poorest nations.
…believe WIPO's work should help support the
multilateral development of intellectual property, not as an end in
itself, but as a means to help achieve the economic, social and cultural
well-being of individuals and societies across the planet. In that
light, we are pleased to see paragraph 6 of the Secretariat's
Performance Report emphasize that "WIPO's strategic goals should also be
viewed in the larger context of the UN Millenium Declaration adopted by
the UN General Assembly in September 2000, placing the eight Millenium
Development Goals at the heard of the global agenda."
(Thanks, Thiru!)
