July 24, 2012 afternoon plenary: the broadcasting treaty text moved forward. All but India supported the Chair’s text as the basis of future works. In their own words:
EGYPT: Thank you, Chair. The African Group …
The African Group would support that the Chair’s nonpaper be adopted as the Committee’s working document, to guide our future deliberations on broadcasting. It’s our further recommendation that this Committee makes a clear recommendation to the General Assembly on our plan towards hosting a Diplomatic Conference on broadcasting in 2014.
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ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My delegation would appreciate your effort, and also Secretariat in preparing this paper. And my delegation supports the usage to adopt this document as a working document as a base for the future negotiations. Thank you, Mr. Chair.SOUTH AFRICA: Thank you very much, Chair. We equally want to share the statement expressed by the delegation of Egypt on behalf of the African Group….Therefore, I think in the interest of accelerating our discussion, we can use this document as a basis to drive our work on a single text. I think on that basis, my delegation supports that we take this document as a basis on which we can commence with our discussion, and equally with the statement expressed by the delegation of Egypt that we have a clear work plan, that can accelerate our discussions so as to have a Diplomatic Conference in 2014.
MEXICO: Thank you, Chairman. We would like to say that we fully agree that the document that you were kind enough to put together and that you have done in a very detailed and concise precise manner, including many concerns of the various delegations, it’s a good basis we think to move forward with our work, and to adopt eventually on broadcasting…
SENEGAL: Thank you Chairman. …
We also believe that we should adopt this document as a working document. We all know that this document is the result of considerable work done by the Chair, Friends of the Chair, and the Secretariat.
We therefore believe that it is imperative for us to have a working document on the basis of which we can work in future, and we have to recognize given all the work that has gone into this, that this document could be such a basis.
We also need to have a clear defined work plan for our future activities on this issue. Thank you.PERU: Thank you, Chairman…So Peru supports this document being adopted as a working document to move forward in this area. I thank you.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. …
We do think that as it stands, it represents a very inclusive document. It is our understanding from all the discussions that preceded that the document remains completely open for further proposals for additional additions, dleetions or — deletions or changes as the discussions progress, and the United States will certainly have some such proposals. We agree that it reflects some very different and in some cases quite inconsistent approaches to a number of the issues of scope of protection. And I would say that we in the U.S. don’t yet have authorization to agree to any of the particular options reflected in the text as of this time. But we do think that it can serve as a working document, as a basis for further negotiations on the conditions that I’ve just mentioned.EUROPEAN UNION: Thank you, Mr. Chair. …
The EU is prepared to work on this document. I should say that we still, we don’t have a clear position from our Member States because we didn’t have time to discuss it with our Member States. But as EU, we can certainly say that we support working on this document on the basis, but it is a open document, which is open to changes, to additions, because we will have as we already mentioned in the meetings before, but we will have such comments, and we will have additions. But we would like to show flexibility, and support this document as a working document. Thank you very much.ALGERIA: Thank you very much, Chairman…I would also like to say that as others have pointed out, in the past, my delegation was strongly in favor of having a single document in order to allow us to make headway on the issue of the protection for broadcasting organisations. That being so, we are more than ready to work on the basis that has been now submitted, on the basis of the document now submitted to us.
NIGERIA: Thank you, Chair….For the broadcast organisation instrument. Nigeria supports the use of this document as a working document for deliberations, in order not to waste further time in concluding work on this treaty. Considering the fact that a lot of time has been spent on putting this document in place.
JAPAN: Thank you, Mr. Chair. …But we would like to, we look forward to making progress towards the treaty as soon as possible. …
ZAMBIA: Thank you, Chair. …The Zambian delegation therefore feels that this document be adopted as a working document to achieve progress. Thank you.
KENYA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. … My delegation supports this document be used as a working document of the Committee, and once again calls for a collaborative spirit through which we can be able to engage ourselves in constructive negotiations or discussions.
It is also our hope that a work plan can be developed to drive this process forward. Thank you.TURKEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. …We believe that Chair’s nonpaper provides the basis for future work. We, therefore, propose that this document be adopted as the official working paper for the SCCR. Thank you.
MONACO: Thank you, Chairman. …It’s an excellent basis for our future work, we believe. Of course, we have to bear in mind that it is a evolving text, and that we reserve our right to come back with further comments on it at a later stage. But at this stage, we can support the text.
Thank you.SWITZERLAND: Thank you, Chairman. … we accept this document, the document that emerged from yesterday’s consultations following the discussion on the nonpaper, we accept this document as a document that should now be adopted as a working paper for the basis of future work within this Committee, and as the basis for future negotiations.
Clearly, this document will continue to evolve as we move forward. And we will reflect progress in the negotiations at future sessions of our Committee. We also believe that it would be appropriate to discuss a work plan in order to ensure that we can achieve results on this issue in the near future.ECUADOR: Thank you, Chairman. Ecuador firstly would like to thank you for the work you have carried out and the Secretariat on this document. Ecuador would like to say the objective of this document achieved broadcasting rights and focus on the protection of the signal of radio broadcasters in their traditional sense, and is not included in the right holders, without prejudice to this Ecuador is flexible and will adopt this text as a working document, with the understanding that it is a open work in progress, and a open document. It is very important that this instrument includes provisions that assure in a modern way that all stakeholders’ interests are guaranteed. We will provide contributions to comment on this document with this in mind. I thank you.
INDONESIA: Thank you, Mr. Chair…We support the document as the working documents and hopefully other documents would follow.
We are of the view that a document like in this format could accelerate the progress and move forward of the negotiation on this matter. Thank you.
India is the only delegation that did not support the text in the following intervention.
Part 1:
INDIA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Indian delegation appreciates your work and especially the work of the WIPO Secretariat bringing all this document, but this document is not a complete document. It looks like a OPEC document, if someone carefully reads it, one article is totally against the other articles, language, especially this is not as per the 2007 mandate, signal bridge approach in traditional sense. Moreover, even though Indian comments are included in this document at the footnote, we have no problem for that, but Indian comments were given basically on these African and Mexican joint proposal, not on the Japanese proposal.
So we don’t have a mandate from our capital to go ahead like this, because this document contains most of the ingredients from the Japanese proposal on which we are not examined at the capital. We don’t have capital’s approval on how to go ahead on those articles which have been put in alternatives.
Unfortunately, we are not in the position to support this document as a working document of the SCCR. Thank you.
Later at the end of the session:
INDIA: I think the position of India is similar to what we are experiencing in the TBA final additional document. Also we were alone, just like famous noble laureate of Internet so we are to work alone in in matter because I will give some explanations why we are against adopting this document as a working paper of this SCCR. If we look at the conclusions of the Twenty-Third SCCR, it has been expressly mentioned, under the heading of protection of broadcasting organisations, the Committee reaffirmed its commitment to continue work on a signal-based approach, consistent with the 2007 General Assembly mandate towards developing a international treaty to update the protection of broadcasting and cablecasting organisations in the traditional sense.
So this document is not in that spirit. As already mentioned to you, Mr. Chair, and to this August house that there are articles which are very contradictory in nature. When we take a document in the traditional sense and signal-based approach, alternatives at least one of the alternatives should support this stand, this spirits. None of the alternatives are in the same spirit. Either you take alternatively A, alternative B, alternative C. So how can we treat this document as a document which is in the General Assembly’s mandate, signal based approach in the traditional sense?
I just would like to mention the contradictory things mentioned. Start from the very article mentioned, article pertaining to the definitions. Look at the definition of the alternatives given, alternative B. Alternative B is talking about the definition of the broadcasting and cablecasting.
It is mentioning that it is understood that including transmission over computer network is not the spirit of this treaty.
If you move forward, whether it is a scope or beneficiaries or the protection of the organisation, which are the major articles, none of the articles in this spirit, at least one alternative should be in this spirit. It is not there.
Moreover, I would like to point out other, preamble is the heart and soul of any treaty. There is no preamble for this.
So without preamble, how can we adopt a document, and then when the, when article is totally against the article, how, we are not able to understand.
And moreover, there are new elements in this. We need to go back. We don’t have a clearance from the capital to, we have a lot of discomfort. Of course, we are very sorry, we don’t want to stall, because we attended television channels looking towards us that they want a treaty. But unfortunately, without a perfect document, we cannot adopt such a imperfect document which is not according to the 2007 mandate.
Thank you.
Last words from the Chair:
CHAIR: Colleagues, I have noted all the comments that have been made. And I note that there is overwhelming support to adopt this document as a working document of the Committee. But we also note the statements that has been made by the delegation of India.
I propose at this stage that we move into informal consultation in the usual format, on this issue, as well as on the future work of the Committee on this agenda item.