[Lib-helig-l] Fwd: [Liasaonline] [IFLA-L] Petition: a new course for The Pan African Intellectual Property Organization is needed

 

 

Ingrid Thomson

Librarian: Humanities Information Division

Chancellor Oppenheimer Library

University of Cape Town Libraries

Private Bag

7700 RONDEBOSCH

SOUTH AFRICA

 

Tel: +27 21 650 3703  Fax: +27 21 689 7569

Email: Ingrid.Thomson@uct.ac.za

 

 

 

>>> "Ms Ujala Satgoor" <u.satgoor@ru.ac.za> 2012/10/30 06:16 PM >>>

Dear Colleagues

 

This is a matter of grave importance and should be supported by as many LIS professionals on the continent as possible. For further information please see the mail below and follow the link to add your name to the online petition.

 

Regards

Ujala Satgoor

LIASA President

 

 

From: Peter Lor [mailto:peterjlor@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2012 7:17 PM
To: Dick Kawooya
Subject: Fwd: [IFLA-L] Petition: a new course for The Pan African Intellectual Property Organization is needed

 

Dear Friends

I'm not in the habit of disseminating petitions, but this is important and quite urgent. You will recall that Dick Kawooya is a co-author of a recent important and forward-looking report on Intellectual property in Africa:

Access to knowledge in Africa: the role of copyright (2010) Eds. C. Armstrong, J. de Beer, D. Kawooya, A. Prabhala, T. Schonwetter. Cape Town: UCT Press. 

Dick knows what he is talking about. I think all African LIS professionals should be encouraged to sign the petition. Please consider signing and disseminating the petition to your colleagues.

Kind regards

Peter

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	[IFLA-L] Petition: a new course for The Pan African Intellectual Property Organization is needed
Date:	Mon, 29 Oct 2012 06:56:38 -0400
From:	Dick Kawooya <dkawooya@gmail.com>
To:	ifla-l@infoserv.inist.fr

The petition below should be of interest to the library community and beyond especially Africans and friends of Africa.

Dick
_______________________________________________________________________________

In 2006, an Extraordinary Conference in Cairo of the African Ministerial Council on Science and Technology (AMCOST) of the African Union mooted the idea of establishing a Pan-African Intellectual Property Organization (PAIPO). Since then, nothing much has been publicly discussed about the nature and scope of this organization until the 'final' draft for PAIPO statute surfaced recently for adoption by the 5th African Union Ministerial Conference on Science & Technology (AMCOST V) meeting from November 12 - 16 2012 in Congo (Brazzaville). The draft statute as it currently stands grants PAIPO significant powers in regulating IP in Africa. However, it also advances a narrow view of IP as an "end in itself" which does not take on board many of the critical public policy objectives in the areas of public health and access to knowledge that African countries have played a key role in pushing forward at the international level.

The petition (below) calls upon AMCOST V to delay the establishment of PAIPO in order to allow for wider consultations on the nature and scope of this organization. Most importantly, the petition calls for recalibrating PAIPO's objectives and mandates so that they are in line with Africa's development needs and priorities. Please add your name to the online petition at the link below (individuals and organisations can sign).

http://www.change.org/petitions/a-new-course-for-the-pan-african-intellectual-property-organization-is-urgently-needed

In addition, please circulate amongst your networks so we can collect as many signatures as possible.

The petition will be up until November 10th 2012 at which point the text and signatures will be delivered to the 5th African Union Ministerial Conference on Science & Technology (AMCOST V) and the African Union.

Thank you for being part of this important exercise.

Dick Kawooya/Ahmed Abdel Latif.

-----
http://www.change.org/petitions/a-new-course-for-the-pan-african-intellectual-property-organization-is-urgently-needed

18th October 2012

A new course for The Pan African Intellectual Property Organization is urgently needed
____

The 5th African Union Ministerial Conference on Science & Technology (AMCOST V) meeting Nov 12 - 16 2012 in Congo (Brazzaville) is expected to adopt the 'final' draft statute of a new Pan African Intellectual Property Organization (PAIPO).

However, the draft statute as it currently stands raises many concerns both procedurally and substantively. The draft PAIPO statute is the result of a non-transparent process without open consultations with relevant stakeholders including civil society. No drafts of the statute have previously been issued let alone publicly discussed. More importantly, the draft statute reflects a narrow vision of intellectual property that runs contrary to the aspirations of Africans to devise more balanced intellectual property regimes that effectively promote innovation while also being supportive of public policy objectives in areas such as public health and access to knowledge. In this regard, the draft PAIPO statute undercuts efforts carried out by African countries to advance such aspirations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and which have resulted in important milestones such as the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health (2001) and the WIPO Development Agenda (2007).

Through this petition, we call upon African countries and the African Union Secretariat to take urgent action in order to:

a) Defer the consideration of the draft statute that would lead to the creation of PAIPO.

b) Use the November meeting to start an open and inclusive consultative process on the nature, scope and objectives of this new body. Moreover, the consultations should be structured to enable various stakeholders, civil society in particular, to contribute to the discussions with a view towards revising the current draft statute and making any resultant IP organization in tune with Africa's development goals and the positions taken by the African countries at the multilateral level.

Below, we further elaborate on the reasons for the need to reconsider the current draft of the PAIPO statute and hold wider consultations on PAIPO.
____________

Why is a new course for PAIPO urgently needed?

(i) Many countries are increasingly seeking to harness innovation and creativity to foster economic growth and find solutions to pressing public policy challenges. In this context, intellectual property has acquired a growing importance in recent years. At the same time, it continues to be a deeply contentious topic particularly in relation to issues such as promoting creativity in the digital environment, food security, climate change, access to medicines and, more broadly, access to knowledge. African countries have been at the forefront of the global debates to achieve more balanced intellectual property regime that is cognizant of the aforementioned issues.

(ii) In this context, the means to strengthen African cooperation in the area of intellectual property require careful consideration and an active process of public deliberations where a diversity of views and interests is represented.

Lack of transparency and broad consultations result in a one-sided view:

(iii) Since the idea of PAIPO emerged in 2007, deliberations surrounding it have lacked transparency and have been confined to a small number of experts and consultants with little information made available to the wider public and relevant stakeholders. No broad multi-stakeholder consultations regarding the objectives and functions of the new entity have taken place. The lack of transparency and of open consultations has led to the one-sided view evident in the narrow focus of the current draft statute of PAIPO.

Innovation should be at the forefront:

(iv) Rather than focusing on the promotion of innovation, the draft statute focuses narrowly on intellectual property as an "end in itself" and on a "one-size fits all" approach. The word "innovation" is only mentioned once in the entire statute while it embodies the ultimate goal that African countries should be pursuing. The draft statute advocates the promotion of IP rights and the harmonization of IP laws across the continent without any consideration for differences in levels of development and in socio-economic circumstances in individual countries in Africa. Such an approach to intellectual property runs contrary to the spirit and letter of the WIPO Development Agenda initiative supported by African countries. Moreover, the value of greater collaboration, open-source research, and alternative reward systems for innovation which are being actively considered at the international level should figure in the PAIPO statute.

Public policy objectives should be addressed:

(v) The PAIPO statute should make reference to the need to achieve a balanced IP regime by incorporating the language of article 7 of the TRIPS Agreement. It also should mention the importance of African countries using limitations, exceptions and flexibilities to promote access to medicines and knowledge. It has been pointed out that the draft statute of PAIPO might not differ much, in this regard, from the statutes of OAPI and ARIPO. However, the statutes of these regional organizations were drafted decades ago at a time when intellectual property rights did not have the far reaching public policy implications they have today. A new African body dealing with IP should address the advantages as well as the limitations of IP and provide a flexible policy space for AU Members to calibrate IP protection according to their needs and different levels of development. Finally, the draft statute should reaffirm the existing rights of least-developed African Union Members to use and seek further extensions under TRIPS so as to promote the development of technological capacity and to ensure affordable access to essential commodities and public goods.

(vi) Finally, the draft statute should make reference to important milestones which crystallize the vision, principles and priorities of intellectual property defended or advanced by African countries at the global level such as the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health (2001), the WIPO Development Agenda Recommendations (2007) and the WHO Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (2008) as well as other reference documents such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In addition, African countries have advanced, in recent years, specific proposals at the WTO and WIPO on patents and public health, technology transfer, limitations and exceptions for libraries, archives, education and research as well as the protection of genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore that should be included.

An incremental bottom-up approach is needed:

(vii) PAIPO ambitions to grant unified IPRs throughout Africa is simply not feasible in any near future or medium term for many technical reasons. There is no evidence in the draft statute that PAIPO is not attempting to supplant ARIPO and OAPI let alone create another layer of bureaucracy. The logical step to start should be to build synergies between OAPI and ARIPO. Rather than a bottom-up approach, PAIPO promoters have taken a top-down approach that will remain ink on paper for many years without practical implementation, a shortcoming that is often criticized in efforts towards African integration. This can be avoided by taking a more gradual or incremental and deliberative approach involving extensive consultations with various relevant stakeholders and organizations.

All stakeholders should be treated equally:

(viii) When mentioning the intergovernmental organizations with which PAIPO should cooperate such as ARIPO, OAPI and WIPO, the statute makes reference the International Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies (CISAC) which is not an intergovernmental organization but an international non-governmental organization which promotes the rights of authors and creators through stronger copyright protection and enforcement. Such a reference is unheard of in the statute of any intergovernmental intellectual property organization but is a sign, among others, about the extent to which PAIPO's draft statute is more tilted to the views and interests of right holders to the detriment of other stakeholders.
An evidence based approach to IP:

(ix) There is a growing consensus at the international level that work on IP, particularly in the area of norm setting and capacity building, should be based and informed by sound, neutral and objective empirical evidence. The draft statute of PAIPO could incorporate such an important consideration and thus become the first IP intergovernmental organization to do so.

An organization for the 21st century:

(x) In a nutshell, the proposed statute establishing PAIPO reads as if it could well have been written in the 1980s or the 1990s. The vision of IP it carries is outdated. It is imperative for AU to change course on PAIPO in order to establish an organization that truly embodies African aspirations for the 21st century in the areas of intellectual property, innovation, dissemination of knowledge, and development.
________

-- 

Prof Peter J Lor, MBibl DPhil

P O Box 884

Sedgefield

6573

South Africa

Mobile: +27 (0) 76 649 3050

 

-- 

Prof Peter J Lor, MBibl DPhil

P O Box 884

Sedgefield

6573

South Africa

Mobile: +27 (0) 76 649 3050

 

 

###

UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN

This e-mail is subject to the UCT ICT policies and e-mail disclaimer published on our website at http://www.uct.ac.za/about/policies/emaildisclaimer/ or obtainable from +27 21 650 9111. This e-mail is intended only for the person(s) to whom it is addressed. If the e-mail has reached you in error, please notify the author. If you are not the intended recipient of the e-mail you may not use, disclose, copy, redirect or print the content. If this e-mail is not related to the business of UCT it is sent by the sender in the sender's individual capacity.

###