UN Activities
WHO Activities
The World Health Organization (WHO) is the United Nations specialised agency for health. WHO was established on 7 April 1948 and as at June 2007, it has 193 Member States. WHO's mission is ‘the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health’. An important part of WHO is its Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health. The Commission looks at how intellectual property rights can promote innovation relevant to public health, and how funding and other incentive mechanisms, including institutional arrangements, may contribute to this end.
Update: WHO working group progresses on global strategy on public health, innovation and IP
On 10 November 2007, it was reported that the Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property has made progress in developing a plan to ensure poor populations have better access to medicines and other health products. Representatives from 140 Member States of WHO met over six days in early November 2007 to discuss key issues including R&D, innovative capacity in the developing world, IP rights and sustainable financing. A resumption of the talks has been tentatively set for 28 April to 3 May 2008 to finalize the strategy and action plan, which is scheduled to be presented to the World Health Assembly in May 2008.
For more information, click here
WHO’s second public hearing on public health innovation and IP
Leading up to the second Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property on 5-10 November 2007, WHO has set up a second web-based public hearing. The public hearing is divided into two sections. The first section is dedicated to comments regarding the recently released draft Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property. The second section relates specifically to the World Health Assembly Resolution WHA60.30, which requested the Director General ‘to encourage the development of proposals for health-needs driven research and development’. Contributors are invited to provide submissions to one of the two sections or to both. The deadline for submissions was 30 September 2007.
For more information, click here
Report released on biomedical innovation, patents and public health
On 4 May 2006, a report commissioned by WHO titled “Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights” was released. The report examines the relationship between intellectual property rights and research and development into diseases disproportionately affecting developing countries. A key issue in the report is ‘how the patent system is relevant to encouraging innovation in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries’. The 228 page report makes several recommendations to governments, governments of developing countries, WHO and other international agencies, and to companies. According to the report, governments should make available reliable information on the patents they have granted, and amend their laws to allow compulsory licensing for export consistent with the TRIPS Agreement. Governments of developing countries should promote the use of a research exemption as part of their patent law and invest appropriately in health delivery infrastructure. WHO and other international agencies should encourage the creation of ‘patent pools’ (agreements between two or more patent owners to licence their patents to one another or third parties) to facilitate product development. Lastly, companies should adopt transparent and consistent pricing policies, and avoid filing patents in low-income developing countries in ways that would inhibit access to products.
To access the report, click here
UNESCO Activities
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) encourages its 192 Member States and six Associate Members to adopt measures which promote ‘international co-operation….in the fields of education, science, culture and communication’. In relation to intellectual property, UNESCO is concerned with the protection and collective management of copyright and traditional knowledge and folklore.
Since little is known in many countries about the role of
copyright, UNESCO encourages governments to adopt measures which promote creativity
and increase the production of national literary, scientific,
musical and artistic works, with a view to reducing dependence
on foreign sources. A first step in this direction is to help
them to prepare legislation and appropriate enactment policies,
and encourage them to adhere to the various international
conventions on the protection of copyright and neighbouring
rights.
UNESCO’s action focuses basically on:
- legal and technical assistance to States
on the protection and collective management of copyright
and performers’ rights;
- the collective or individual training
of specialists;
- support for the university teaching of
copyright and neighbouring rights, backed up by the creation
of UNESCO Chairs;
- the administration and promotion
of international conventions administered by UNESCO or jointly
with, for example, WIPO and ITO, the organization of the
meetings of the statutory intergovernmental committees of
the Universal Convention on Copyright and the International
Convention on the Protection of Artists or Performers, Producers
of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations (Rome Convention)
and promotion of the application of the recommendations
adopted by the General Conference ofUNESCO.
By
issue:
Diversity of Cultural Expressions
Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions
Broadcasting
UNESCO study on the Draft WIPO Broadcasting Treaty
Access to Information in the Public Domain
Recommendation on the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace Traditional
Knowledge
Working Group for Legal
Experts on the Protection of Traditional Knowledge and Expressions
of Culture
Intangible
Cultural Heritage
Draft Convention
for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage
Human
Genetic Data
International
Declaration on Human Genetic Data
Diversity of Cultural Expressions
Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions
UNESCO announced that as of 8 November 2006, 16 States have ratified the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, adopted by UNESCO’s General Conference in October 2005. The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, welcomed the “particularly rapid” rate of the Convention’s ratification. In order for the Convention to enter into force, it must be ratified by 30 countries. Among other objectives, the Convention highlights “the importance of intellectual property rights in sustaining those involved in cultural creativity” and reaffirms that “freedom of thought, expression and information, as well as diversity of the media, enable cultural expressions to flourish within societies.”
For more information, click here
Update: UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions enters into force
The UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions entered into force on 18 March2007, three months after the thirtieth instrument of ratification was deposited. To date, 62 States have ratified the Convention and the European Union has adhered to the convention as a regional organisation of economic integration. The Convention intends ‘to create the conditions for cultures to flourish and to freely interact in a mutually beneficial manner’ and calls for the creation of a voluntary International Fund for Cultural Diversity. It establishes the sovereign right of Member States to develop cultural policies with a view ‘to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions’ and recognises cultural goods and services as ‘vehicles of identity, values and meaning’.
For more information, click here
Broadcasting
UNESCO study on the Draft WIPO Broadcasting Treaty
A study commissioned by UNESCO on the Draft WIPO Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations has been released. The study includes the following findings:
- the Draft Treaty would expand, in the international arena, the level of protection granted to broadcasting organisations and the beneficiaries of such protection (adding cablecasters and possibly webcasters);
- the proposed legal framework may prevent access to materials in the public domain; and
- the term of protection would not be in accordance with the underlying rationale of recovering investment.
The study provides recommendations based on these, and other, findings.
To access the study, click here
Access to Information in the Public Domain
Recommendation on the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace
At its Thirty-Second Session in Paris from September 29 to October 17, 2003, The UNESCO General Conference adopted a Recommendation on the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace. The Recommendation comes under UNESCO's leading international role in promoting access to information in the public domain by encouraging multilingualism and cultural diversity on global information networks. As part of this purpose, it reaffirms and promotes the fair balance between the interests of right owners and the public interest in articles 23 to 25. Specifically it recommends Member States:
- update national copyright legislation and adapt it to cyberspace, taking full account of this balance;
- encourage rightsholders and the lawful beneficiaries of limitations and exceptions to copyright and related rights protection to ensure that such limitations and exceptions are applied when they do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the rights-holders;
- pay careful attention to the development of technological innovations and to their potential impact on access to information in the framework of copyright and related rights protection under international treaties and agreements.
For more information about the Recommendation and its background, click here.
Traditional Knowledge
Working Group for Legal Experts on the Protection of Traditional
Knowledge and Expressions of Culture
The Working Group for Legal Experts on the
Protection of Traditional Knowledge and Expressions of Culture
met in Noumea, New Caledonia from 26-28 June 2002.
The Working Group was convened by the Secretariat of the Pacific
Community (SPC), which is the premier regional technical and
development organisation of the Pacific. The SPC is currently
running a Legal Protection Project, in partnership with the
Forum Secretariat and UNESCO, which is aimed at promoting
legislation in the Pacific Islands for the protection of traditional
knowledge and expressions of culture. Participating in the
meeting were delegates from Fiji, New Caledonia, New Zealand,
Palau, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Vanuatu and Australia, as
well as delegates from the SPC, the Pacific Islands Forum
Secretariat and WIPO.
The Working Group has produced a Draft Model Law for the
Protection of Traditional Knowledge and Expressions of Culture,
which establishes a new range of statutory rights for traditional
owners of traditional knowledge and expressions of culture.
The approach taken in the Draft Model Law is to protect the
rights of traditional owners in their traditional knowledge
and expressions of culture and permit tradition-based creativity
and innovation, including commercialisation thereof, subject
to prior informed consent and benefit-sharing. The Draft Model
Law also reflects the policy that it should complement and
not undermine intellectual property rights.
The Draft Model Law will be circulated to member countries
of the SPC for their information and action as considered
appropriate by individual countries. The purpose of the Model
law is to provide a starting point for Pacific Island countries
wishing to enact legislation for the protection of traditional
knowledge and expressions of culture. As such, countries are
free to adopt or adapt the Draft Model Law as they see fit
in accordance with national needs, the wishes of their traditional
communities and their legal drafting traditions.
Intangible Cultural Heritage
Draft Convention
for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage
Experts from 103 countries, gathered from
the 2nd to 14th of June, 2003 at UNESCO,
handed to the Director-General the Preliminary Draft International
Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage,
which they adopted by consensus. The text, the fruit of
several
years of work, was presented by the Director-General to UNESCO’s
General Conference in Paris from September 29 to
October 17, 2003, where Member States adopted
the Convention by an overwhelming majority. The Convention
will come into
forces after it is ratified by 30 States Parties. A complete
text of the Convention can be found here.
The Convention is a much-needed complement
to the 1972 Convention on cultural and natural heritage, by
ensuring the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage.
It stresses the safeguarding of oral traditions and expressions,
including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural
heritage, performing arts, social practices, rituals and festive
events, knowledge and practices about nature and the universe,
and traditional craftsmanship. Specifically the Convention
provides for:
- the drawing up of national inventories
of cultural property to be protected;
- the establishment of an Intergovernmental
Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage,
composed of experts from future States Parties to the Convention;
and
- the creation by UNESCO of a Representative
List of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity and of a second
list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.
According to the Convention, safeguarding
activities will be financed by a fund, made up of contributions
from States Parties, funds appropriated for this purpose by
UNESCO's General Conference, and contributions, gifts or bequests
made by other States, organisations or individuals. This concerted
action by the international community should ensure better
visibility and improved safeguarding of this particularly
vulnerable heritage.
On March 19, 2004, Algeria
became the first Member State to ratify the UNESCO Convention
for the Safeguarding of the
Intangible Cultural Heritage, after completing the
required procedure at the Organization on March 15.
For more information about Intangible Heritage
and the Convention, click here.
Human Genetic Data
International
Declaration on Human Genetic Data
At the Thirty-Second
Session of UNESCO's General Conference
in Paris from September 29 to October 17, 2003
an International
Declaration on Human Genetic Data was adopted.
The Declaration lays down the ethical principles that should
govern collection, processing, storage and use of genetic
data. The purpose of the Declaration is to ensure the respect
of human dignity and the protection of human rights and fundamental
freedoms, in keeping with the requirements of equality, justice
and solidarity, while giving due consideration to freedom
of thought and expression, including freedom of research.
It undertakes to define the principles that should guide States
in formulating their legislation and their policies on these
issues. For more information about the Declaration, click
here.
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