If you worked your way through all these
blog postings (especially the last one), you may be wondering, "Okay,
so where does this leave the development agenda?"
Good question. Again, it depends on your perspective and your goals.
1. If you think the development agenda is a bad thing--that it is an attempt by the IP skeptics to weaken intellectual property protection and an excuse for them to foist their philosophy upon an international audience--then we (for that is my view) managed to survive the development agenda process. Click here for my blog entry where I lay out the different philosophies and forces at work on this. (By the way, I should have trademarked the phrase "IP skeptics." I'm starting to see lots of people using it. I think I coined the term; I'm not sure. But I'm happy for it to be in the public domain.) The fight will be fought all over again in September before the General Assembly, since the result of the Development agenda process was to dump everything onto the General Assembly.
2. If you were a genuine proponent of the development agenda--if you really believe this stuff about intellectual property being the reason that your economy is not developing, and that it has nothing to do with things like lack of clean running water, rule of law, an independent judiciary, etc.--you lost, for now. Yes, you can fight again before the General Assembly, but you pretty much got the idea on Friday that the U.S. and Japan are determined to not let this thing proceed, no matter how much you try to isolate them and make them feel uncomfortable. So you can't be too optimistic about your chances before the General Assembly.
3. But what if you were pushing the development agenda even though you didn't expect it to succeed? What if you were pushing it just to tie WIPO up in knots, to drive the U.S. crazy, and to have a forum to advance your anti-IP views? Well, then, it was an unmitigated success for you, because you got to give interventions, hang out in a really cool place like Geneva, pass out your A2K tee shirts, irritate the U.S., mislead the members of foreign missions who don't really know much about IP, and to then be able to go back to your liberal foundation funders and say "look what a good job we did--don't you want to give us some more money?"
4. [What if you're WIPO itself? Well, you're glad you survived the development agenda process, but you were repeatedly insulted, and now you've got even bigger problems to deal with. But that's another story for another time.]
So what are the facts on the ground?
1. The formal development agenda process is over, but WIPO has been forever politicized. It will never again be the fairly-well functioning organization that it once was. Everything from now on--every little piddly budget discussion, etc., will be tinged with the politics of North vs. South, of developed vs. (not)developing countries, and with the resentment of Brazil, Argentina, and their allies. At least until there is significant political change in those countries.
2. This same debate will occur in September during the WIPO General Assembly, but this time with even higher-level delegations from the member countries. I'm not sure how the higher-level delegations will change the outcome. It's my understanding that a higher-level delegation from the U.S. will be even more determined to prevent the development agenda from happening.
3. The politicization of WIPO will result in more and more organizations getting involved as NGOs, and frankly that will just cause a spiral of politicization. The more NGOs there are, the more interventions there will be, and the less that will actually get done. Pretty soon WIPO will be nothing more than just a place for people to give speeches--like most other UN organizations.
4. If that happens, countries and companies that produce IP will have to give serious thought to an alternative to WIPO. Remember, at its most basic level, the useful service WIPO offers is simplifying the process by which an inventor can submit his application for protection to multiple countries. There are other ways to do that, if WIPO becomes a useless organization.
Good question. Again, it depends on your perspective and your goals.
1. If you think the development agenda is a bad thing--that it is an attempt by the IP skeptics to weaken intellectual property protection and an excuse for them to foist their philosophy upon an international audience--then we (for that is my view) managed to survive the development agenda process. Click here for my blog entry where I lay out the different philosophies and forces at work on this. (By the way, I should have trademarked the phrase "IP skeptics." I'm starting to see lots of people using it. I think I coined the term; I'm not sure. But I'm happy for it to be in the public domain.) The fight will be fought all over again in September before the General Assembly, since the result of the Development agenda process was to dump everything onto the General Assembly.
2. If you were a genuine proponent of the development agenda--if you really believe this stuff about intellectual property being the reason that your economy is not developing, and that it has nothing to do with things like lack of clean running water, rule of law, an independent judiciary, etc.--you lost, for now. Yes, you can fight again before the General Assembly, but you pretty much got the idea on Friday that the U.S. and Japan are determined to not let this thing proceed, no matter how much you try to isolate them and make them feel uncomfortable. So you can't be too optimistic about your chances before the General Assembly.
3. But what if you were pushing the development agenda even though you didn't expect it to succeed? What if you were pushing it just to tie WIPO up in knots, to drive the U.S. crazy, and to have a forum to advance your anti-IP views? Well, then, it was an unmitigated success for you, because you got to give interventions, hang out in a really cool place like Geneva, pass out your A2K tee shirts, irritate the U.S., mislead the members of foreign missions who don't really know much about IP, and to then be able to go back to your liberal foundation funders and say "look what a good job we did--don't you want to give us some more money?"
4. [What if you're WIPO itself? Well, you're glad you survived the development agenda process, but you were repeatedly insulted, and now you've got even bigger problems to deal with. But that's another story for another time.]
So what are the facts on the ground?
1. The formal development agenda process is over, but WIPO has been forever politicized. It will never again be the fairly-well functioning organization that it once was. Everything from now on--every little piddly budget discussion, etc., will be tinged with the politics of North vs. South, of developed vs. (not)developing countries, and with the resentment of Brazil, Argentina, and their allies. At least until there is significant political change in those countries.
2. This same debate will occur in September during the WIPO General Assembly, but this time with even higher-level delegations from the member countries. I'm not sure how the higher-level delegations will change the outcome. It's my understanding that a higher-level delegation from the U.S. will be even more determined to prevent the development agenda from happening.
3. The politicization of WIPO will result in more and more organizations getting involved as NGOs, and frankly that will just cause a spiral of politicization. The more NGOs there are, the more interventions there will be, and the less that will actually get done. Pretty soon WIPO will be nothing more than just a place for people to give speeches--like most other UN organizations.
4. If that happens, countries and companies that produce IP will have to give serious thought to an alternative to WIPO. Remember, at its most basic level, the useful service WIPO offers is simplifying the process by which an inventor can submit his application for protection to multiple countries. There are other ways to do that, if WIPO becomes a useless organization.