Dialogue on Global IP Negotiations: Present Realities and Future Challenges

From climate change to biodiversity and access to medicines, intellectual property (IP) has become a cross cutting issue with important public policy implications. Regional/bilateral trade agreements and plurilateral initiatives have also become an important feature of the global IP landscape. As a result, global IP negotiations have significantly gained in complexity. Countries, particularly developing ones, are faced with numerous challenges such as coalition building, articulating coherent national positions to address complex issues and coordinating these positions across different forums. How do countries achieve this? What are the practical difficulties for country negotiators in global IP negotiations? What are the present realities and future challenges facing these negotiations?
This dialogue provides an opportunity for capital-based IP officials to interact with a number of Geneva-based delegates to examine recent developments in forums such as WIPO and WTO, to provide a practical perspective on how IP negotiations are conducted in Geneva, and to discuss the interface between Geneva-based delegates and capital-based IP officials.