SECURE's Future Not So Secure?

Last year I wrote about an insidious little agreement called SECURE - Standards to be Employed by Customs for Uniform Rights Enforcement. As you might guess, those "standards" involve intellectal monopolies to the nth degree. But lo! There is hope:

In what might be seen as a victory for defenders of flexibilities for poor nations in international trade rules, the World Customs Organization in December recommended the discontinuance of a working group on intellectual property enforcement standards after it became “deeply embroiled” in debate from member governments fearing it would impose undue obligations on them. But the IP and customs issue may not be out of the fire yet.

A new committee will be sought with a stronger focus on technical assistance and capacity building, according to a WCO document, but this has raised new doubts about participation in new committee’s creation, according to a developing country official.

“The Policy Commission was informed that the SECURE Working Group established by the Council in June 2007 to deal with IPR issues had become deeply embroiled in difficulties related to its terms of reference, essentially because of a perceived fear that the group’s work on standard-setting might be used as a means of enlarging the obligations imposed on countries by the WTO TRIPS Agreement,” said the summary of outcomes document [pdf] of the WCO Policy Commission, which met from 9-11 December in Buenos Aires.

It ain't over yet, but what is important is that it seems that the developing nations are really waking up to the way that intellectual monopolies are being used as a kind of new imperialism: the more that realise that, the less chance TRIPS and its misbegotten siblings will have in imposing their hidden agendas around the world.

Back-Door Maximalist Intellectual Monopolies

This looks like a very serious attempt to bring in maximalist intellectual monopolies through an agreement called SECURE under the aegis of the World Customs Organisation (sic) :

Susan Sell, director of the Institute for Global and International Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington, DC, said in a recent paper (available here [pdf]) that the SECURE aims were “TRIPS-plus-plus,” referring to extending beyond the scope of the 1994 World Trade Organization Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS). “These new anti-counterfeiting and enforcement initiatives are just the latest mechanisms to achieve the maximalists’ abiding goal of ratcheting up IP protection and enforcement worldwide,” she said.

Viviana Muñoz Tellez of the intergovernmental South Centre said in the South Centre Bulletin (16 April 2008 issue [pdf]) that the SECURE working group seems to be “setting new standards of intellectual property enforcement through the back door,” and that this “may extend beyond the WCO mandate.” Separately, she told Intellectual Property Watch that standards presented as voluntary could become mandatory down the line. “Soft law,” she said in the article, “is often the basis on which ‘hard law’ is later established.”

And if that's not bad enough, there's a couple more details:

Other concerns of Sell’s are that the standards would extend monitoring to all IP, as opposed to just trademark and copyright, and would free IP rights holders from the burden of providing evidence that there is infringement “initiate a procedure.”

Patents would be turned into a customs issue (whaaat?), and there would be no need actually to show that an infringement happened in order to start a "procedure".... In other words, this SECURE (and for the name, see here) is about extending the RIAA's intimidatory tactics to the whole of intellectual monopolies, and globally.

But wait, there's more:

There also was substantive concern that rights holders, such as industry trade associations, were participating in WCO meetings at the same level as member states, to the extent of having their own vice-chair. Muñoz’s article characterised their involvement as “on equal footing” with members, and said they can “equally suggest draft language.”

...


“We’ve been very open with the public,” he added, about the allowance of private sector stakeholders in the meetings. What is unique about the way that WCO meetings are run is that observers may speak and express opinions once members have spoken. This is in contrast to the WTO and WIPO, where observers generally only offer comment if asked to, or with express permission of a meeting chair.

So, the industries mostly closely involved with intellectual monopolies are helping shape the agreement alongside the government organisations. Well, that's sure to produce a balance, isn't it?