Carolina Botero, Fundación Karisma
Originally published in Spanish in El Spectador (Link)

Keeping track of the budgets of entities is boring, but it is key because it defines what is funded and what is not. Last week the Member countries of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) held the first of two meetings to approve the budget that will now include work on exceptions and limitations.

WIPO is the UN organization that deals with intellectual property.

Intellectual property has two faces. The first is the face of exclusive rights, which support an important economy. Although intellectual property was created to facilitate the life of creators, it is also questioned for being the main source of income for large monopolies. The second is the face of the public interest, the mechanisms that balance these rights with others for the benefit of society. Exceptions and limitations are part of these balancing mechanisms that are often forgotten.

Last Friday, member states gave their first approval to WIPO’s budget, which will maintain five actions over the next two years. The 2024-2025 budget provide resources to WIPO for the discussion of emerging issues, for dealing with copyright exceptions and limitations, and for assistance to countries debating exceptions and limitations in their domestic laws. The Colombian Mission to the United Nations in Geneva was behind this proposal.

Last March, during the sessions of the WIPO Copyright and Related Rights Committee (SCCR), the flag to promote the issue of exceptions and limitations was in the hands of the African Group, with a concrete proposal to advance this agenda. Twenty years ago, the group of Latin American countries -GRULAC- was the driving force behind this agenda. However, GRULAC has lost strength for a number of reasons, including the arrival of governments less aligned with the needs of access in our region.

At the March SCCR sessions, we had hoped that with the change of government in Colombia there would be a decisive shift in its position, which has traditionally been one of opposition to the agenda. However, this was not the case – in March Colombia was moderate. The change really came to WIPO in May and coincided with the visit of the Minister of Trade, Germán Umaña, to Geneva.

The WIPO budget committee first agreed documents were approved last May 26. On the same Friday the Ministry of Trade posted on Twitter:

After the visit of Minister @GermanUmanaM to Geneva, we celebrate significant achievements, in the framework of the #ColombiaPotenciaDeVida policy. At the @WIPO we opened the space for:

  • A more balanced intellectual property policy.
  • More room for exceptions and limitations in copyright, with people as the main target.
  • Gender equity and diversity in intellectual property. Colombia defends the African legacy and its culture, and requested the participation of these communities in the @WIPO negotiations that will take place in India in 2024, on genetic resources and traditional knowledge.

As proposed by President @PetroGustavo in his inauguration speech, in @MincomercioCo we promote the development of a society of knowledge and technology, under a policy of balanced intellectual property. @CancilleriaCol @sicsuper”

The evidence of the change is that our country proposed to allocate resources for WIPO to work expressly on exceptions and limitations in the budget committee that day. There is still a meeting in June to approve it, but the agreements on exceptions and limitations have already been defined.

The Ministry’s tweet gives another interesting clue as to what is happening at WIPO. The positions of Latin American countries and the African group are surely converging because of a common interest: the discussions on traditional knowledge that will be the focus of the meeting in India in 2024. It is worth noting that Nigeria also proposed flexibilities in the budget committee, and Algeria presented adjustments to the copyright section to include language from the Development Agenda, with positions close to those of Brazil.

An additional curious note, this year there were questions because more than 50% of the entity’s budget is allocated to communications, with the vague purpose of “promoting that intellectual property contributes to the lives of all people”.

Just a month ago, I was skeptical about whether Petro’s government would really change its approach to intellectual property, as the National Development Plan does not provide details on how it would seek balance in the copyright system. However, the bases of the National Development Plan expressly include exceptions and limitations as a necessary element to generate a balanced system between copyright and the public interest, including principles and needs for adaptation of legislation. Colombia’s leadership in the WIPO budget discussions obliges me to recognize that it is applying these guidelines.

The next two years will be interesting. With clear foreign policy instructions, Colombia is proposing a line of work in these forums that is unprecedented and that will serve to support the work that civil society has been doing in Latin American for years, a work that is usually best promoted by countries such as Brazil, Ecuador or Chile – at least in WIPO.

In national politics, the ball is now in the court of the institutions, especially the Intersectoral Commission on Intellectual Property – CIPI-, that must now develop what is happening in Geneva. The hearing of exceptions and limitations of the National Copyright Directorate, which has been pending since 2021 according to Law 1915 of 2018, is turning to be a strategic instrument for this government.