On 13-14 May 2009, representatives from 10 Latin American and Caribbean governments, representatives from blind organizations and nongovernmental organizations met in Montevideo (Uruguay) to analyze the World Blind Union (WBU) proposal for a WIPO treaty for the blind, visually impaired and other reading disabled persons.
Using the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), KEI has obtained the daily schedule of Ambassador Kirk, from March 20 to May 1, 2009. KEI has separately asked the USTR to routinely as a matter of transparency post this information on the USTR web page.
The response to the follow is presented below in two pdf files:
March 20 to April 14, 2009
April 15 to May 1, 2009
WIPO has published the program of the “Information Meeting on Developments in Broadcasting Provisional Program” (SCCR/18/INF/2 Prov.) which will take place on Monday, 25 May 2009.
This morning the 62nd session World Health Assembly agreed to a resolution on public health, innovation and intellectual property that, among other things, settled outstanding issues regarding the “stakeholders” for various parts of the Global Strategy and Plan of Action. (GS/PoA). With regard to the issue of a possible medical R&D treaty, the outcome of the negotiation was something of a split decision. On the one hand, the WHA agreed that the WHO would not be a stakeholder, in terms of the specific element of the WHO Global Strategy document. Continue Reading
This is the statement that the government of Bolivia delivered today to the 62nd World Health Assembly at the conclusion of the discussions on the Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (WHA 61.21).
Statement of Bolivia on resolving outstanding elements of agenda item 12.8
Joint Statement on behalf of
Bangladesh, Barbados, Bolivia and Suriname, and
Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela
The WHA will take up the WHA IGWG resolution at 9AM on Friday.
When discussing the issue of excluding the WHO from discussions about a medical R&D treaty, one PhRMA lobbyist told me “this was put to bed long ago.” He was in part referring to a WHO “green room” meeting that was organized before the Obama inauguration. One negotiator said the pharmaceutical companies are pressing hard to kill the medical R&D treaty here “before the new people take over.”
21 May 2009
Today at the World Health Assembly (WHA) the US and EU are opposing that the WHO have a mandate on global research and development norms, including the possibility for Member States to negotiate at WHO a global biomedical R&D treaty.
Developing countries governments made very strong interventions this morning on this issue (among them India, Bolivia, Barbados, Suriname, Bangladesh, Ghana, Argentina, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Cuba and Jamaica) and are wondering where are the promises of multilateralism made by the new Obama administration.
Thursday, 21 May 2009
Delegates at the World Health Assembly will have to grapple with how best to deploy their delegations to simultaneously cover pandemic influenza and resolving the outstanding elements of the WHO IGWG Plan of Action.
Today’s WHO Journal lists the following morning schedule for Committee A.
Item 11 (continued) Medium-strategic plan, including Proposed Programme budget 2010-2011
To consider appropriation resolution for financial period 2010-2011
Item 12 (continued) Technical and health matters
This morning a draft Resolution proposed by the Delegations of Canada, Chile, Iran (Islamic Republic), Japan, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Norway and Switzerland was distributed to the 62nd WHA as document A62/A/Conf.Paper No.4
If approved in its current form, the resolution will conclude the Plan of Action with the stakeholders, time frames and progress indicators proposed by the documents distributed by the WHO PHI secretariat this week.
May 18, 2009
Open Letter to WHO Member States on outstanding components of Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property
Dear WHO Member States,
During the 2008 World Heath Assembly WHO Member States reached unanimous consensus on resolution WHA 61.21 that adopted a Global Strategy and unfinished Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual property.