[WSIS CS-Plenary] Report from UNESCO intergovernmental day 9 & 10

[Sasha Costanza-Chock]

Apologies for cross-posts.


UNESCO intergovernmental session II, Day 9: Tuesday, February 8, 2005

Summary:
The entire morning was taken up by largely unsubstantive questions and 
procedural discussion regarding the final clauses of the convention, 25 
through 29, on ratification and so forth. There was some back and forth 
on the number of states required for the convention to entry into force, 
and some discussion of the special clause referring to countries that 
have a federal system. In broad strokes, it seems at this point 
impossible for them to finish the week with a final revised text. What 
will most likely happen (though this is subject to debate) is the 
following: this week will end with recommendations from the plenary to 
the drafting committee on most or all of the draft text. The drafting 
committee won't have time to incorporate all of these and report back to 
plenary, so the drafting committee will either be held over several more 
days or called back to work in a few weeks. Some version of a revised 
text will be submitted on March 3rd, which is required in order to meet 
the 7 month deadline before the General Assembly in the fall. Then, 
there will have to be another intergovernmental, probably in May. On the 
US side, the State Department is willing to organize a briefing for 
public interest groups sometime before this May meeting.

The drafting committee will meet late tonight to try and bring 
suggestions on 12-18 (rights and responsibilities) to the plenary...

Full text: http://www.mediatrademonitor.org/node/view/179

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UNESCO intergovernmental session II, Day 10: Wednesday, February 9, 2005

Summary:

Today the drafting committee met all morning to continue working. In the 
afternoon, plenary met to discuss the new draft of articles 12 through 
18 (except 13), on rights and obligations of the signatories of the 
convention, as well as the president's suggestions for the definition of 
'protect.' In general, it was encouraging to see some progress coming 
from the drafting committee, with suggestions for articles 12 through 18 
that took into account many comments from the plenary. Unfortunately, 
the imperative to developed states (especially in article 13) to make 
room in their markets for developing country cultural expressions has 
been watered down with language like 'encourage, where possible, with a 
view to.' On the good side, many provisions describing cultural policies 
that should be part of the 'toolkit' remain in, when they might have 
been deleted. Also positive, the proposed definition of 'cultural goods 
and services' that came from the president has removed the unbalanced 
clause on intellectual property. That's not a done deal, however, and 
will come up for debate in the drafting committee tonight and in plenary 
tomorrow.

There was then a long debate about the chair's recommended definition of 
the term 'protect.' The overwhelming majority want to keep the term in 
the convention, and repeatedly say that it is being used not in the 
sense of trade protectionism but in the sense of nurture, safeguard, 
preserve, enhance. The US is pretty much alone in continuing to insist 
that 'protect' be bracketed and pushing for its deletion or replacement 
with another term, although Japan is reserving judgment for later.

Tonight the drafting committee continues meeting, as will an ad hoc 
working group on the definition of 'cultural goods and services' (see 
below for how the chair tried to stack this group against the Brasilian 
position but was rebuffed)...

Full text: http://www.mediatrademonitor.org/node/view/178

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CRIS+ Statement regarding Intellectual Property Provisions in the draft 
Convention

To UNESCO Delegates: The undersigned support the spirit of the UNESCO 
draft convention on cultural diversity and are encouraged by the efforts 
of the delegates in their inter-governmental meeting in Paris, January- 
February 2005. However, we are deeply concerned that the current draft 
mentions the need to protect or even strengthen intellectual property 
more than 16 times, while failing entirely to mention the need to 
protect access to knowledge, the public domain, and the cultural 
commons. If this imbalance is not corrected, the proposed Convention 
would represent a serious departure from both the Universal Declaration 
of Human Rights and the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural 
Diversity...

Full text: http://www.mediatrademonitor.org/node/view/180

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