Opening statement by India, on behalf of the Asia& the Pacific Group in the 32nd Session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights delivered by Dr. Sumit Seth, First Secretary(Economic)on 9 May 2016

Mr. Chair,

India has the honor to deliver theOpening Statement on behalf of the Asia and the Pacific Group in this 32nd Session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights.

Asia & the Pacific Group would like to express its confidence in your experience and your leadership skills. We are confident that your hard work and diligence will yield desired results and help this committee reach a mutual understanding on all outstanding issues. Our group would also like to thank the WIPO Secretariat for the preparation of this meeting.

Mr. Chair,

The SCCR is an important committee of WIPO dealing with three issues of critical importance to member states namely protection of broadcasting organizations; limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives and exceptions and limitations for educational and research institutions and for persons with other disabilities.

These three issues are of great importance to our group. Going by the discussions at the 31st session of SCCR in December 2015 it would not be wrong to say that SCCR is facing some difficulties in finding agreement on how to proceed in its work on these agenda items. Our group believes that these issues have not received the equal level of commitment and understanding commensurate to their importance based on the differential socio-economic development of the Member States. Inclusiveness and mutual understanding of each other's’ priorities is essential for the progress.

In this spirit of multilateralism, Asia and the Pacific Group reaffirms its commitment to engage constructively in negotiating a mutually acceptable outcome on all three issues before the committee. Our group would like to put on record its support for the proposed program of work.

Mr. Chair,

Members of the group would like to see the finalization of a balanced treaty on the protection of broadcasting organizations, based on the mandate of the 2007 General Assembly to provide protection on the signal based approach for cablecasting and broadcasting organizations in the traditional sense.

Mr. Chair,

For our Group, exceptions and limitations are of critical importance for individuals as well as collective development of enlightened societies. However, there is no denying the fact that some divergence on how exceptions and limitations should be approached exists among member states.

Exceptions and limitations have an important role to play in the attainment of the right to education and the access to knowledge, actualization of which in many developing countries is hampered due to lack of access to relevant educational and research material.

It is unfortunate that absence of adequate will to discuss and develop the two exceptions and limitations before this committee has resulted in a stalemate on all these three important issues.

Mr. Chair

Asia and the Pacific Group has taken note of the proposal submitted by the GRULAC in the last session to discuss the current digital environment and copyright interface. Members of my group will make interventions in their national capacity under this agenda item and will proactively participatein the discussion on this contemporary topic.

We hope that all member states shall engage sincerely and constructively in this session on these two issues based on previous discussions and new inputs so that we are able to develop a mature text to discuss and work on.

Mr. Chair

This is the same committee which has given us the Beijing and the Marrakesh Treaties.  My group is optimistic that with the noble intentions and the right will we can pave the path for the development of appropriate international instruments on all three issues soon.

We look forward to productive results and tangible progress in this session

I thank you once again Mr. Chair for the opportunity.