Framing Access to Medicines
Contemporary questions over access to medicines are speeding up as quickly as the advance of science. New drugs for a range of diseases are extending life and transforming health systems, with breakthroughs especially affecting the global South just in the past few years. The IP regime is also expanding and there are genuine questions around what a 21st century response looks like. How do we frame a pro-public health, pro-access, pro-innovation agenda? What alternatives to IP maximalism have a real chance of success? And how are academics and civil society responding?
...Conceptualising Users' Rights: Copyright, Open Access and Enforcement in Dialogue
Leading thinkers comment on the strategic and conceptual linkages between users rights campaigns being waged in copyright reform, in promoting open access policies and in resisting the global enforcement agenda. How are open models (either voluntary or prescribed) a useful parallel tool to expansion of limitations and exceptions in copyright to achieve similar legal reform goals? Where are open reforms and copyright reforms moving together? How will the Creative Commons (CC) policy change alter the work of CC affiliates? How are users advocates framing their resistance to the enforcement agenda in users rights terms and achieving similar goals through such advocacy?
Presentation on national traditional knowledge register/databases in Peru, followed by discussion. Presentation slides available below.
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Presentation on India's Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), followed by discussion.
...Parallel Session 1: User Rights Reports from the Field: Advocates (including open advocates and CC affiliates) involved in promoting users rights around the world report on opportunities for positive change. What positive proposals are being offered in policy processes? What advocacy strategies are working? Where are the key opportunities for change and intervention? How are open and copyright reform strategies intersecting? Presentation slides available below.
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How Enforcement Works: Despite the centrality of enforcement to Internet policy debates, there is still surprisingly little work on its actual practice: how it is organized in the public and private sectors, how much it costs, how effective it is, what role the courts play, and so on. This session will explore recent work and opportunities for research on the practices of enforcement, from the growth of distinctive ‘enforcement industries,’ to efforts to estimate economic impact, to accounts of border enforcement against counterfeit goods.
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Presentation on South Africa's National Recordal System (NRS), followed by discussion.
