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April 21, 2006
Sisule Musungu on the A2K Movement
Notes from Sisule Musungu, South Centre
I want to focus on the origins of the international a2k movement in Geneva.Wikipedia (at the moment): a draft treaty for a WIPO development agenda to encourage the transfer of technology to developing countries. Hopefully by the end of the session we'll have a better definition.
It's true that the intl movement is centered around the 2004 WIPO proposal (the Geneva declaration) to adopt a development agenda. But its origins predate that event. The proposal is to elaborate a treaty for access to knowledge and technology to ensure knowledge transfer to developing countries. It only focused on publicly funded research, though. And there were other a2k-related proposals relating to things like impact assessment.
http://www.cptech.org/a2k - url for the Geneva declaration
The Drahos proposal: a framework treaty forming principles as opposed to legal rules, since this is a very difficult, complex subject
Access to knowledge should be seen as an organization/advocacy tool.
It should be a political tool - govt to govt relations and institutional discussions such as WIPO
It should be an analytical framework susceptible to scientific inquiry - how do you measure a2k?
Some other potential frameworks: a human rights framework, development framework, a free culture framework and an economic framework.
Posted by acarvin at April 21, 2006 10:53 PM
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