The Permanent Representative of Brazil, Roberto Azevedo, delivered the following statement to the 48th session of the WIPO General Assembly. The intervention was delivered in Portuguese; below is the English translation.
SEPTEMBER 2010
Statement Delivered by the Permanent Representative of Brazil, Ambassador Roberto Azevedo
Mr. Chairman,
Let me start by congratulating you on the excellent job you have been doing in conducting the work of WIPO’s General Assembly.
Let me also extend my thanks and appreciation for the Director-General Francis Gurry, and, through him, for all the work undertaken by all members of the Secretariat of WIPO.
Last year was the first time that I addressed the General Assembly in the capacity of Brazil’s Permanent Representative. On that occasion, I voiced my conviction that it would be in the interest of all member States to preserve the role of WIPO as the key multilateral body in charge of setting rules and principles on intellectual property matters.
By reiterating the same message today, I cannot fail to observe that the institutional strengthening of WIPO has gained even more momentum and relevance since then. A multilateral agency of the UN system, a forum that gathers around 140 countries, an organization whose deliberations are increasingly more transparent, with an active participation by representatives of both the private sector and civil society, WIPO can count on the indispensable credentials of legitimacy, “expertise” and inclusion to take a leading role in the debates on the evolution of the international system of intellectual property.
Legitimacy, “expertise” and a culture of inclusion are pre-requisites for ensuring the effectiveness of any new international rule. Without those three elements, these norms will not be applicable to, nor enforced in relevant economic spaces that today constitute the dynamic centre of the world economy.
That is why all member States should strive to maintain WIPO at the centre of intellectual property “rule making”. This would also entail agreeing on intergovernmental mandates to the complex talks under way in different fora on the interplay between intellectual property, on the one hand, and public health, climate change and food security, on the other.
Mr. Chairman,
The approval of the Development Agenda in 2007 was aimed at extending the benefits of the intellectual property system to all countries, especially those that are still to reap fully the promised benefits of the system. Countries in that country, it is worth recalling, are not limited to developing ones.
The Development Agenda has added a new dimension to this Organization that calls for empirical learning methods and flexible implementation methodologies, in addition to budgetary resources commensurate with its importance.
The Development Agenda demands furthermore a change in WIPO’s organizational culture, a change that must also be extended to the atmosphere in which intergovernmental negotiating processes take place. It is necessary to leave behind defensive postures that are associated with mutual mistrust. The Development Agenda is meant to fill an important void in the system of intellectual property, bring to it a higher balance.
WIPO provides rights holders as well as member countries with relevant services. But the role of WIPO is not limited to that of a provider of services. An agency of the UN system must comply with the wider goals of the United Nations, in particular the promotion of development and of the millennium development goals.
Those wider goals are the cornerstone of the creation, earlier this year, of the Development Agenda Group (DAG), of which Brazil is one of the founding members. The DAG will be coordinated by Brazil after the General Assembly.
In around five months, the DAG has consolidated itself as an open grouping of countries, willing to engage in dialogue as wells as capable of promoting consensus on matters that have positioned development as a key component in this Organization.
Mr. President,
Changes of such magnitude and depth require time and willingness to take root.
We are fully aware that a lot remains to be done. Yet, some developments that have taken place over the past 12 months may be taken as an indication that we are on the right track.
We have managed to approve, within the CDIP, a mechanism for coordination, monitoring and assessment of the implementation of the Development Agenda.
We have also reached tangible progress in the process of reform and improvement of the Patent Cooperation Treaty.
We have deepened and accelerated, at the IGC, the negotiating process of one or more legal instruments aimed at the protection of genetic resources, traditional knowledge, and folklore.
We have developed the concept of respect for intellectual property. That concept implies a broader and more complex approach to dealing with enforcement-related issues.
We have intensified, at the SCCR, the process of talks that may lead to the resumption of negotiations of a treaty for the protection of audio-visual performances, as well as of the debate on exceptions and limitations on copyrights.
Within that context, as is well known, Brazil along with Ecuador, Mexico and Paraguay, – and backed by a significant number of countries representing a broad array of social realities – has been working towards the recognition of the effective and socially binding solutions to improve access to knowledge for persons with print disabilities.
Our proposal must be seen against an international legal framework for copyrights that is deeply consolidated and tested in more than a century of effective implementation.
Furthermore, we have been working – the four countries sponsoring a draft treaty for copyright exceptions to visually impaired – in close coordination with NGOs with relevant and concrete experience in dealing with the everyday challenges faced by the visually impaired, in particular the World Blind Union.
Brazil remains optimistic about prospects for real negotiations on the matter, which will ultimately represent a test to gauge the capacity of WIPO to contribute to the strengthening of the UN values and to the realization of Millennium Development Goals.
We must work towards a true convergence of international governance in the fields of human rights and intellectual property, thereby giving concrete expressions to principles of coexistence that guides us while at the same time keeping our feet firmly on the ground.
We hope to be able to conclude, in as short as possible a time frame, a treaty at WIPO that might be what Stevie Wonder referred to yesterday, at the opening session, as a “declaration of freedom” for the blind to the extent that it will allow for better access to knowledge.
Brazil will continue, in a nutshell, to be giving its substantive contribution, individually or together with other member countries, and in the different bodies and committees of WIPO, such as the Advisory Committee on Enforcement or the Standing Committee on Patents, where we have tabled written submissions over the past twelve months.
Mr. Chairman,
In concluding, I would like to welcome the establishment, within the Secretariat, of units devoted to in-depth economic analysis and to the implementation of the Development Agenda, as part of the strategic realignment pursued by the Director General.
Brazil, like other countries that may be said to belong to that category of “late comers” to the knowledge economy, has a good deal to gain from an informed reflection on the impact of intellectual property on the different dimensions of development policies, based on sophisticated empirical evidence.
With that in mind, Brazil has hosted earlier this year a meeting of economists who are experts on intellectual property. The meeting was organized by WIPO and its chief economist, Carsten Fink.
Thank you.