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Letter

Open NGO letter on farmers rights and seed policies to the International Plant Treaty (ITGPRFA)

  • 29/02/2016
  • 3 page(s)

Dr. Shakeel Bhatti,

Secretary

International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA)

Interrelations between the International Treaty and relevant instruments of UPOV and WIPO.

Dear Mr. Bhatti,

In 2014, 54 civil society and farmer organisations from across the world sent a letter to you dated 18th September 2014 calling for the establishment of an independent commission to investigate the implementation of Article 9 by UPOV and WIPO with regard to their respective instruments and activities and for the investigation to be conducted in a participatory manner.

Following the request, the Secretariat issued a Notification dated 29 October 2014 (GB6-028) which outlined a process for the identification of interrelations. The notification called for inputs from contracting parties and civil society on the subject and stated:

“After the ACSU will have processed the identified interrelations, the Secretary will transmit the results to UPOV and WIPO. Based on the interrelations thus identified, jointly with UPOV and WIPO, a small team of 3-4 experts will be agreed and an initial outline for a joint report be prepared and made available for public comments by membership and stakeholders of the respective instruments.

After closing of the comments on the draft outline, the experts would be tasked to incorporate the comments and work on a draft report to the Governing Body. The draft report would again be made available for comments on the Treaty website and comments would be incorporated into the final version. In response to the Governing Body’s request, the Secretary would then submit the final version to the Governing Body. “

At the ACSU meeting in March 2015 the Committee “reviewed the tentative list of some of the issues that were mentioned in the submissions received by the Secretary before this meeting, and recommended to forward the entire list in slightly amended form to UPOV and WIPO.”

The ACSU took the matter forward in line with the process outlined in the Notification mentioned above. In fact, in a letter dated 27th March 2015, Notification GB6-028 together with the full Report of the ACSU was notified by the Treaty Secretariat to Dr. Francis Gurry, Secretary General of UPOV and Director General of WIPO. Further Secretariat’s document (IT/GB6/15/13) prepared for the 6th session of the Governing Body also highlighted elements contained in Notification GB6-028 including the convening of a small team of experts to draft a report on the possible areas of interrelations among their respective international instruments.

In Resolution 5/2015 the Governing Body requested you to «continue» the engagement «through a participatory and inclusive process». The Governing Body did not question the process outlined in Notification GB6-028 nor the list of issues of interrelations of ACSU. Its request for the Treaty Secretariat to “continue” the process in a participatory manner is a clear endorsement of the process outlined by the Secretariat and a signal for the Secretariat to go ahead with the process as described in Notification GB6-028.

Accordingly, following the transmission of results to UPOV and WIPO, the next step would be to put together a team of independent experts that is mandated to draft a report on interrelations between the International Treaty and the relevant international instruments of UPOV and WIPO for consideration by the Governing Body.

It has been brought to our attention that UPOV member states may be considering the holding of a symposium in which their Contracting Parties would present information on their experiences in implementing the UPOV Convention and ITPGRFA. We are of the view that this suggestion is completely inadequate for the identification of possible areas of interrelations between the international treaty and relevant instruments of UPOV and WIPO. Further it is neither participatory nor inclusive.

Most importantly that suggestion backtracks and contradicts the process outlined in Notification of 2014.

We strongly urge you to continue with the process outlined in Notification GB6-028 and to identify independent experts to undertake an investigation on implementation of Article 9 by UPOV and WIPO. We would stress that the process should be participatory and inclusive, which as clarified by the Notification means to invite stakeholders for public consultations on the outline and on the draft report prepared by the independent experts. The Experts should have extensive expertise on and support implementation of Article 9.

In the case UPOV has no interest for an in-depth analysis of possible areas of interrelations, the Treaty Secretariat, in order to deliver a useful outcome for the next governing body, should nevertheless continue the process.

We look forward to actively participating in the process as outlined in Notification GB-028.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

On behalf of the signatories Sangeeta Shashikant, Third World Network, and François Meienberg, Berne Declaration

Signatories:

  1. ACT Alliance EU, Belgium
  2. Aliansi Organik Indonesia (Indonesian Organic Alliance), Indonesia
  3. Aliansi Petani Indonesia (Indonesia Peasant Alliance), Indonesia
  4. Association for AgriCulture & Ecology (AGRECOL), Germany
  5. Action for Change and Progress, Kenya
  6. African Center for Biodiversity (ACB), South Africa
  7. Agriculture Sovereignty, Ghana
  8. AgrarKoordination, Germany
  9. AllianceSud, Switzerland
  10. Asociación ANDES, Perú
  11. ASPSP, Senegal
  12. Berne Declaration, Switzerland
  13. Bina Desa, Indonesia
  14. Bread for All, Switzerland
  15. Bread for the World – Protestant Development Service, Germany
  16. Bioscience Resource Project of Ithaca, USA
  17. Building Eastern Africa Community Network (BEACON), Kenya
  18. Centre for Sustainable Development (CENESTA), Iran
  19. COASP, West Africa
  20. Community Technology Development Trust (CTDT) Zimbabwe
  21. Commons for Ecojustice (EcoJustice), Malawi
  22. Dachverband Kulturpflanzen- und Nutztiervielfalt, Germany
  23. EcoNexus, UK
  24. Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers Forum (ESAFF), Tanzania
  25. Fahamu Africa, Senegal
  26. Food Sovereignty Ghana, Ghana
  27. Forum für international Agricultural Policy, Germany
  28. Freie Saaten e.V., Germany
  29. FIAN-Indonesia
  30. JINUKUN-COPAGEN, Benin
  31. Indonesia for Global Justice (IGJ), Indonesia
  32. Indonesian Human Rights Committee For Social Justice, Indonesia
  33. Institute for Ecology and Action-Anthropology (INFOE), Germany
  34. International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), UK
  35. Growth Partners Africa (GPA), Kenya
  36. Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre, Zambia
  37. Kenya Food Rights Alliance (KeFRA), Kenya
  38. Konphalindo, Indonesia
  39. Pan-Africanist International
  40. Red de Semillas “Resembrando e Intercambiando”, Spain
  41. Rumah Organik, Indonesia
  42. Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA), South Africa
  43. SEARICE, Philippines
  44. Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI), Indonesia