IGC 46 Summary

WIPO’s Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) concluded its 46^th session on March 3, 2023. It addressed traditional knowledge (TK) and traditional cultural expressions (TCEs).

An ad hoc expert group on TK and TCEs met on February 26, 2023, to address specific legal, policy and technical issues related to TK and TCEs. It was chaired, in their personal capacity, by Mr. Anthony Kakooza (Associate Professor of Law, Uganda Christian University, Uganda) and Ms. Edwina Lewis (Director of Policy and International Affairs, IP Australia, Australia), who reported to the IGC plenary on the results of the ad hoc expert group’s work.

IGC 46 was chaired by Ms. Lilyclaire Bellamy of Jamaica, with Mr. Jukka Liedes of Finland, Mr. Yonah Seleti of South Africa and Mr. Felipe Cariño of the Philippines as Vice-Chairs.

Plenary on Agenda Item 6 (“Traditional Knowledge/Traditional Cultural Expressions”)

The IGC requested Mr. Paul Kuruk (Ghana) and Ms. Thea Seferovic (Australia) to act as “Facilitators”. Following the discussions at the IGC’s plenary and an open-ended contact group, the Facilitators presented to the plenary a revision of “The Protection of Traditional Knowledge: Draft Articles – Facilitators’ Rev.” and a revision of “The Protection of Traditional Cultural Expressions: Draft Articles – Facilitators’ Rev.” on March 3. The IGC decided to transmit the revised texts to IGC 47 for further consideration.

Ms. Lilyclaire Bellamy, the IGC Chair, prepared a non-paper of the first draft of a Chair’s Text of a Draft International Legal Instrument relating to Intellectual Property and Traditional Knowledge/Traditional Cultural Expressions. The document is available online in six languages.

The decisions and all the documents of the session are available online.

Indigenous peoples and local communities’ participation

WIPO facilitated a preparatory meeting of the Indigenous Caucus (the meeting is referred to as the “Indigenous Consultative Forum”) on Sunday, February 26, 2023, in a hybrid format. Additionally, the Indigenous Caucus organized daily meetings during the session and met separately with the IGC Chair and Member State delegates. The WIPO Secretariat continued to fund secretarial services (secretariat, interpretation and translation) for indigenous peoples and local communities at the session, provided by the Documentation Centre for Indigenous Peoples (Docip).

With the previous contribution of Germany to the WIPO Voluntary Fund, one indigenous representative attended IGC 46. Three indigenous representatives have been selected to attend IGC 47 from June 5 to 9, 2023. However, the WIPO Voluntary Fund is close to empty and it may not be possible to fund any participants for IGC 47.

Indigenous panel

The indigenous panel focused on the findings and recommendations from the Indigenous Expert Workshop that took place from February 22 to 24, 2023. The panelists discussed a wide range of issues relating to TK, TCEs, and genetic resources (GRs) and associated TK. In addition, the experts made recommendations on language in the Chair’s Text of a Draft International Legal Instrument relating to Intellectual Property and TK/TCEs and the Chair’s Text of a Draft International Legal Instrument relating to Intellectual Property, GRs and TK associated with GRs. The report of the workshop is available online.

Please visit https://www.wipo.int/tk/en/ for more information or email us at grtkf@wipo.int