Monday, April 18, 2005

WIPO spin lockout on Development agenda

David Tannenbaum is not pleased at the World Intellectual Property Organisation's media advisory is

"putting some heavy spin on the lock-out of civil society NGOs. The media advisory suggests that while "The WIPO secretariat has taken note of non-accredited NGOs that have requested to participate in the [development agenda meetings], on an ad hoc basis," the secretariat isn't going to do much about these requests. The advisory says, "Any departure from the original General Assembly decision on this question rests firmly within the hands of the member states," and refers to the General Assembly decision that "WIPO-accredited IGOs and NGOs are invited to participate as observers in the meetings."
This media advisory suggests that the General Assembly language binds the secretariat to close out civil society NGOs, but the restrictive gloss on this language is a creation of the secretariat alone."

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