183. The Kingfisher Atlas of the Medieval World by Simon Adams. Illustrated by Kevin Maddison

Unlike many such books, this really does mean the World in Medieval times, rather than Europe. Every continent gets at least a few pages, dependent on how much the empires and nations are known to have changed during the timeframe. The book is beautifully illustrated, with hand-drawn maps of the area and empire(s) under discussion on each double-page spread. Each map features small pictures and captions of interesting events and places within the larger area and period, and there is a paragraph or two of general overview on the page as well. There are also a few pages of more general introduction with more text and some photographs as well.

184. Remembered: The History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission by Julie Summers and Brian Harris (photographer)

One of those books I would surely never have picked up and read cover to cover, but it was worth it, as it's well written and fascinating. I'm trying to cultivate the sense of being interested in, roughly, everything, while retaining the discrimination to not have to put myself in the way of what will only desensitise me.

The history part of the book is not over-sentimentalised, but still brought tears to my eyes when facing up to the sheer scale of death and destruction of individual lives, families and stories. The historical photographs are well chosen and contextualised within the text, and the new (full page) pictures of the cemetaries as they are today are both beautiful and informative, as well as often informative. One thing I did not find out from either the book or the CWGC website is what part, if any, they play in the burial and commemoration of soldiers of more recent conflicts than the First and Second World Wars.

185. International Organisations: UNICEF by Deborah A. Grahame

Informative and well produced, with an American focus.

186. Patricia Lynch: Storyteller by Phil Young

My mother read Patricia Lynch's books when she was a child, then got me some of the reprints when I was, and has now passed on this new biography. The first section is very heavily based on the autobiography, A Storyteller's Childhood, which to me is the most memorable of the books I read, but I really didn't know anything about Lynch's adult life. I hadn't realised she was quite so prolific as a children's author (nor did my mother), - it unfortunately seems she's out of print - nor that she was so involved in the politics and struggle for women's suffrage and Irish independence as a young woman. Hopefully this book will awaken enough new interest that some new editions of the books will come out.

187. Wildlife Monographs: Polar Bears by Dr. Tracey Rich & Andy Rouse

This one has also made me think again about children's fiction, but this time books I've read far more recently: Chris D'Lacey's Icefire series. (Polar Bears, squirrels, hedgehogs and dragons.) (I am purposely not linking first to his own website, as it opens up with noise, which I hate, but now you're warned, at least.) Anyway real polar bears are fascinating and beautiful in their own right, and this book, as the others in the series, displays and explains them very well.

188. Wildlife Monographs: Puffins by Heather Angel

The new author is noticeable in the style of the book, although the structure is the same. When I was a child I thought puffins were young penguins, not a similar but separate species of bird, from the Northern rather than the Southern Hemisphere. (Because of these people, of course.) Anyway, this misconception had previously been cleared up, but I still knew very little about the northern birds, so it's good to learn more about them.

There is one more book on the list already, but I'm leaving that to the next post for a reason. I might even get it up today.

Cowell writes: "The question in Ireland was whether the democratic voice of a land of 4.2 million could dictate events affecting the lives of 500 million Europeans. The question in Africa was whether an undemocratic coterie around Mugabe could defy its neighbors, its people and its own continent with complete impunity."

Is the sovereignty of a nation the most important, or should organizations like the African Union, the European Union or the United Nations be able to force leaders of nations to give up power in their own nation based on the ideals of the rest of the world? Just how important is national sovereignty?
This topic as always interested me, particularly when looking at human rights abuses and genocides. At what point should the consciences of other nations force those nations to bound together to stop a country that is harming its people? Human rights abuses should be the core of any international coalition stepping into a particular countries’ business. However, with so many different ideologies about the role of government and the way people should live, the line often becomes to fine to draw and to blurry to lead to an agreement.
If human rights violations become the only reason for international coalitions to be able to completely overrule another country, what exactly constitutes a human rights abuse? In the case of Zimbabwe, could a completely broken economy with an inflation rate of 100,000 percent be reason enough? How much of a role should politics play? Is the lack of a free and democratic vote in Zimbabwe enough to step in? What about China, Russia or Cuba? Is one or a few countries’ dislike for another nations government system, like America’s dislike of Fidel Castro’s communism, reason enough for the whole world to get involved?
How many complaints about discrimination, whether based on ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation or religion, equal Does the situation have to be so out of hand, that only a genocide gives other countries that right? If that’s the case, as we’ve seen in the past, it is difficult to quantify a genocide for political reasons, especially during wartime.

The tutorial takes users through a brief introduction to Interational Law and then delves into meatier sections on Treaties & Agreements, Customary Law and Interanational Organizations.  The tutorial ends with a list of Essential Sources that form the backbone of international legal research.

We have assigned this tutorial to the students in our Advanced Legal Research class several times over the past three years and many students have noted is utility in the research process.

The Child protection project in Europe website is a product of the Regional Child Protection Project, located in Budapest, Hungary.

This project is implemented by Terre des hommes - Child Relief, based in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Terre des hommes - Child Relief launched in mid 2005 the Regional Child Protection Project (RCPP) for South Eastern Europe. At the end of the pilot phase, in January 2007, Tdh decided to concentrate the efforts of the RCPP to contribute to the common goal: children in migration are better protected against exploitation.

Links:

• Child protection project in Europe
• Terre des hommes

Plans are now afoot at merging the World Bank and the IMF, the two economic pillars of the post-war alliance of nations to foster cooperation and development. They came straight out of the Breton Woods agreement, and were rightly called the ‘Breton Woods Agencies’ then.

The merger is among the responses of the technocratic-financier-political elites of the North to the crashing global economy. The ‘virtual economy’ based on financier speculation and worthless bubbles, or otherwise ‘casino economy’ of the wealthy, had burst so badly. The implosion of the financial system had seen the closure of big banks and the alarming loses of others most specially those that had enormous exposures to the subprime realty market in the USA.

The question is whether this merger is really the appropriate response to a system problem. Many experts and quarters the world over have been clamoring, since way back 1990s yet, for the convening of a ‘new Breton Woods’ and the institution of a new global financial architecture. I was among these experts on the Philippine side, and many of us are inside government as executives and legislators.

However, an IMF-World Bank merger is farthest from our mind. The IMF particularly has this notoriety for prescribing shock treatment on economies in crisis, particularly the developing countries or DCs, that do not at all mitigate the long term impact of structural problems. On the contrary, the austerity pills of the IMF were shown to have caused further contraction, depression, and deterioration of once thriving emerging markets.

Let’s face it, the IMF and World Bank are largely the institutional agents of the global financial cartels. They do not represent the true interest of sovereign nation states, do not exercise any accountability at all except to the financier sponsors behind the backs of the IMF-World Bank boards and leadership, and are instruments to encumber nations into perpetual debt peonage. The IMF-World Bank group represents the forces aimed at destroying sovereign nation-states and no less.

The North does not have a monopoly of wisdom in salving the ailments of the global economy, and so we peoples of the south  may just have to push for actions that would see how the catastrophic impact of the global economic implosion will be mitigated. Let the OECD propel their own oligarchs’ self-aggrandizing actions, while we patriots of the South move on to save our people, nations, environments and institutions from further predatory onslaughts by the greedy global oligarchs.

The IMF-World Bank merger is a hideous monstrosity. Be forewarned!

[Writ 26 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

In 1993, less than four years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the capital of reunited Germany, hosted the spring session of North Atlantic Assembly's then 16 member nations. In November 2000, Berlin again hosted the 46th Annual Session of the newly re-named NATO Parliamentary Assembly which by then included 19 member parliaments. From 23 to 27 May, the now 26 members delegations from NATO member countries meet again in Berlin along with legislators from more than 20 non-member parliaments, including Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Altogether, about 340 parliamentarians are expected to participate.The 5-day session will take place in the Bundestag where the NATO PA's five committees (Political, Defence and Security, Science and Technology, Civil Dimension of Security, Economics and Security) will consider a wide range of reports on issues that remain at the centre of the debate about Western security, such as operations in Afghanistan, Kosovo and the future of the Balkans, NATO's future political agenda, democracy and security in Central Asia, NATO’s present and future partnerships, energy security, reducing global nuclear threats, state and religion in the Black Sea Region, etc.

Committee speakers include German Federal Minister of Defence, Dr Franz Jung, Lt. Gen Sher Karimi, Chief of Operations Afghan National Army, Hon. Douglas Bereuter, President of the Asia Foundation, Daniel Fata, US Deputy Secretary Assistant of Defense for European and NATO policy, and Air Marshal Christopher Moran, Deputy Commander at Joint Force Command Brunssum.

Assembly President, José Lello will open the plenary meeting on Tuesday 27 followed by Klaus Wowereit, Governing Mayor of Berlin and Göran Lenmarker, President of the OSCE PA.  There will be question and answer sessions after speeches by NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer; Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Bantz John Craddock, and Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Foreign Affairs

Frank-Walter Steinmeier.The plenary session will be broadcast live on web tv at:

http://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/parliament/plenary/tv.html.

NATO Parliamentary Assembly President, Jose LELLO and
the Head of the German Delegation to the NATO PA, Karl LAMERS
will give a detailed
PRESS BRIEFING
at 10:00 am, Friday 23 May
3M001, Third Level, Reichstag Building

During this Spring Session, the Assembly will also ask its members to begin discussions on the issues and ideas that they feel should feature in any new strategic concept to be developed by NATO.The Session is open to accredited Media. For information, members of the Press should contact the NATO PA Press Service: + 32 2 5 0 48 154. For accreditation they should contact the Deutscher Bundestag Press service at  + 49 (0) 30 227 35570.

http://www.nato-pa.int/default.asp?SHORTCUT=1368 Consult

http://www.nato-pa.int/default.asp?SHORTCUT=1368 for regular updates. 

The NATO Parliamentary Assembly is an interparliamentary organization,
independent from NATO, which provides a link between NATO and the
parliaments of its member countries.  The Assembly also brings together
legislators from NATO member and non-member countries to consider
security-related issues of common interest and concern.

The NATO Parliamentary Assembly is an interparliamentary organization,
independent from NATO, which provides a link between NATO and the
parliaments of its member countries.  The Assembly also brings together
legislators from NATO member and non-member countries to consider
security-related issues of common interest and concern.

Callous! Mad and utterly callous up to the end!

This is what I can say of the praetorian leaders of Burma. The country has been clearly devastated by the powerful typhoon that razed through the Irrawady area recently, killing past the 100,000 death mark as of a couple of days ago. Humanitarian work had almost halted as the praetorians have focused their efforts more on preparing the electorate for the democratization process and forthcoming polls.

Sure, there is no lack of merit for democratizing Burma and widen the political stream to include state players from among the other competing political parties and interest groups. But to over-focus on  vote-gaining democratization issues at a time of catastrophe, contingency and national mourning for the dead escapes our comprehension and will only lead to a cul de sac of greater catastrophe. For sure the great men U Thant and Aung San must be squirming in their graves right now.   

By ‘more catastrophe’ we don’t only mean deaths on the victims. We mean that, after the typhoon relief tasks are over, and the country indeed moves on to that phase of public choice of new political forces and leaders, the military will be crashed by its own callousness in the relief operations days. Then, unwilling to admit the results of the polls, the praetorians would again move on to crash legitimate efforts to replace the military in power.

Sad! How tragic and sad are the affairs of life in Burma. This once citadel of growth right after Britain left the country in cognition of its full sovereignty, turned into a developmental nightmare of unfathomable poverty when the praetorians took over power through the might of the gun.

“Political power comes from the barrel of the gun,” Mao once declared. Following such a dictum, we may add that “perpetual violence from the barrel of the gun causes more vicious cycles of misery.” That’s my line, fellows, and I’m citing the dictum based on experiences in my own country and elsewhere wherever ceaseless violence happens: more misery and economic collapse.

Meantime, we can only hope that the international pressures on the Burmese praetorians to open up the gates for humanitarian work by international players will be heeded. Strategically, in the long run, the ASEAN may have to equip itself with a regional armed force that can serve as equalizer against any tyrannically abusive political group—topped by the Burmese praetorians and the Khmer Rouge—that only knows how to bring down their respective country to graveyard status after centuries of glorious High Culture and greatness.   

[Writ 19 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.1

Following this statement, Jefferson concludes that property is not bestowed by nature, but rather, regulation is conferred by society. What is interesting about such a statement are his implications that patent law is necessary as an incentive for innovation, and that it has potential for the improving “the condition of man” around the entire world2. Provided this insight has particular merit, it would be prudent to evaluate how might protecting intellectual property can ensure the welfare of man in the contemporary at a global level.

Tempering this discussion of law at the global level is the notion of domestic politics. In the aforementioned letter, Jefferson criticized nations that found patent law to be “an embarrassment”. The passing of two hundred years has ushered in a blossoming global production system that confounds the subject of law. One must wonder to the degree to which IP law is isolated to the regions in which it is conceived.

Hence, examination of intellectual property law as a whole requires careful analysis of the pertinent international institutions, and in particular, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Combining the issues at hand, it is necessary to determine the extent to which the WIPO transcends national boundaries and acts as a sovereign force. The first part of the discussion will comprise of a brief introduction to intellectual property law, along with the history and the identity of the organization; the second will cover how national interests appear in the WIPO and the development of a unique organization culture within the institution. Discourse will depict a perspective of law subject to a high level of politicization, and simultaneously show a side of international organization that is distinct from national whims.

The relevancy of the Jefferson quote continues with the discussion of intellectual property law. Not unlike the former president's concerns, intellectual property covers the sphere of invention—whether it is industrial design (as per patents), artistic work (copyright), or business information (trademarks and trade secrets). Protection of these works can be seen accordingly as protection on two levels. The monopoly conferred upon individuals can be used to safeguard their livelihood that assumes that form of IP and it can be a method of strengthening national power in the face of global infringement (e.g. to stop free-riding at the cost of a specific nation). The end goal of both is singular in accordance to Jefferson's philosophy: IPR exists to give incentives to produce innovation. Yet, these two definitions are important to note. In an era where individuals' intellectual pursuits take collective importance in multinational enterprises, IPR serves as a hedge for companies to avoid business losses attributed to infringement. As Archibugi and Ianmarino suggest, innovation production can be a dimension in which nation and firm-based cooperation and rivalry occurs3. Thus, any given nation has an interest in creating a strong suite of IP regulations not simply because the individuals would want it, but because bolstering the strength of national firms is crucial to ensure economic growth domestically. The importance of IPR is profound with these complications in mind; compounding the nature of innovation production as a battleground with the current North-South inequality in political and economic wealth leads one to believe that IPR is yet another tool developed by nations control to exploit less developed nations. Such a position is what characterizes the sentiments of a large base of the anti-globalization political bloc, such as famed economist Joseph Stiglitz.4

Furthermore, IPR has limitations. As Stiglitz claims, IPR bestows temporary monopoly power designed to bestow economic control for an individual and his or her immediate relation. Constitutionally defined, IPR does not exist to make large groups wealthy through a feudalistic ownership of ideas; to do so would create disincentives for the group, as well as society, to innovate. The theory driving this notion posits that ideas are evolutionary, thus to forever keep an idea from becoming public use is to subject the future creation of ideas to transaction costs in order to license the concept that led to the invention of future technology. Beyond the temporary status of the subject in question, intellectual property differs greatly from real property in the sense that it is immaterial. As an idea, the product requires no resources to exist and only requires resources to reproduce. This allows for reproduction of the good to be incredibly low in costs in existing as an idea. Information is not inherently rivalrous as material products are in this case, for they lack scarcity as their counterparts. Legitimization is necessary to create price for these products that lack an inherent value, in this case5. These notions are important to keep in mind when confronting IPR-related problems. Although they are not directly tied to the de jure operations of WIPO and its agreements (in relation to other IOs), the issues of North-South divide and the ambiguous price of IP-based products influence the theoretical framework of how the WIPO operates.

Historically speaking, the organization is not more than forty years old, and for this reason should have a fairly simple past. It was not until 1974 when the WIPO became a specialized agency in the UN. Yet, the organization has a longer, less unobtrusive past than what its relatively short past should yield. According to the WIPO6, their history begins with the problems occurring at international invention fairs and conventions—infringement would occur over national borders as producers made knock-offs of exhibited goods, making a commercial fortune in their domestic marketplace. Prior to this example of the expanding world market, IP law making was isolated to a country's jurisdiction. There were few treaties defining IP law for the whole of the world. To deal with this new threat of invention piracy, a Paris-based diplomatic conference in 1880 decided to create a treaty that helped inventors acquire patents in foreign countries; with “convention priority right” defined, any prospective patent holders had the ability to use his or her first filing date (from the original country) when applying for a patent abroad7. Establishing priority date is a necessary requirement: the earliest priority date for a particular patent is given leverage in international infringement cases, and generally has the least chance of having the patent's novelty suspected. In other words, to be able to get a date gives a smaller scope of time for the patent office to investigate in regards to issues of prior art.

In addition to the Paris Convention, the Berne Convention was founded during this time to protect innovation. Born out of Victor Hugo's Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale in 1886, the Berne Convention was founded to protect creative works8. Copyright protection at an international level utilizing the Berne Convention conformed to French national standards: works need not apply for copyright (as do patents) in order for court-sanctioned protection to be nominal, and that works were protected from unfounded slander or libel bearing any potential for devaluation.

These two organizations culminated into the creation of the United International Bureau for the Protection of Intellectual Property (BIRPI) in 1893. It can be seen as the first international organization charged with administration of IP law and an organization prototypical for the WIPO. Despite being charged with a task international in scope, the BIRPI had a small staff and operating budget. Perhaps such small scale could be seen as a function of the BIRPI's times: during the pre-war years, international institutions were small and informal. Only through the breakout of catastrophic war and contagious economic ruin were the virtues of IOs, a formalized interdependency, were seen as necessary to ensure collective security. In this spirit, the United Nations was formed and the BIRPI acted accordingly. In 1967, planning to integrate the BIRPI into the fold of the UN was initiated, formally establishing the WIPO. Following this, the WIPO specialized agency under the Secretariat's Economic and Social Council and adopted a headquarters in Geneva9.

Since the WIPO's establishment, it has grown considerably—both in geographical and objective scope. It has remained relatively stable in its founding, fostering little change to its underlying goals. As the discussion turns towards the goals of the organization, two turning points are crucial for analysis: the first being the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), and the second being the WIPO copyright treaty. While the former is a treaty based with the GATT/WTO and is generally comprised of a clarification of the minimum IPR requirements necessary for inclusion into the international organization (IO); the latter comprised a treaty based under the UN (via the vertical hierarchy mentioned above) and is designed to safeguard information technology against infringement (especially via technological means, such as circumvention of anti-infringement devices or software), both have implications upon the march of globalization. For the 21st century, the corpus of innovation will not take a material form outside of their fetters on hard drive platters, and these two treaties can be seen as an anticipation of conflict to come, mainly, whether one may truly call an algorithm property, let alone inventive patentable material. More will be commented about this turn of events as an evaluation of the objectives of the WIPO becomes the focus.

Any given organization can be defined in two ways: de jure operations and de facto operations. It is important to look at both because contrasting the former (how an IO should work) with the latter (how an IO actually works) can not only account for how change occurs, but also how efficient the organization is as a whole. In accordance with this strategy, the WIPO can be defined, ideally, through its operating parameters: by the mission statement via its charter; its strategic goals, which are defined through medium term planning meetings as well as biennial budgetary meetings; and through the core tasks the organization accomplishes to satisfy the previous two groups of objectives.

The primary goals of the WIPO on its founding are outlined in the 1967 convention, article III: “to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world through cooperation among States and, where appropriate, in collaboration with any other international organization”, and “to ensure administrative cooperation among the Unions”. Concision is the commodity for these primary goals, at the cost of specificity. What the WIPO does accordingly is to work with other IOs and nations in order to protect IP.

Interpreting the medium term goals can effectively denote what “protection of IP” means at a more scrutinizing degree. As of 2006-2007, the WIPO strives to reach these following medium term goals:

*

To promote an IP culture;
*

To integrate IP into national development policies and programs;
*

To develop international IP laws and standards;
*

To deliver quality services in global IP protection systems; and
*

To increase the efficiency of WIPO’s management and support processes. 10

Broken down into a more categorical fashion, one can interpret these goals as the core tasks of the IO: developing IP law and standards, delivering global IPR services, encouraging the use of IP for development, promoting IP awareness and education, and providing a forum for debate11.

In reality, the WIPO operates a bit differently compared to the IO's goals. May divides the activities of organization into three realms: promotion of national IP laws, support for nations in meeting their treaty obligations (whether it is the TRIPs or a bilateral agreement), and maintaining existing international treaties12.

Originally, managing treaties consumed the majority of the WIPO's scope as and organization: this has since changed with the advent of the WTO as a centralized body for international trade affairs. In terms of agreements, the main treaty administered is the Patent Cooperation Treaty. The WIPO acts as a coordinating agent behind multiple receiving offices of patents, and under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) becomes a body vested with ability to confer international patents to prospective holders. The patent application process is cheaper this way in terms of time and money, decreasing the transaction costs of “knowledge industries” around the world. With application fees extracted through the PCT, the WIPO is able to raise ninety percent of its operating budget13. To this extent the WIPO can act as an independent body from the UN.

Another hallmark of this independence, certainly the most major change to occur to how the WIPO operates occurs with the TRIPs and WTO. Before either was established, the WIPO was the focus of policy relating to development and diffusion of science, technology, and IP as a whole in cooperation with the G-77. But with the designing of the TRIPs via the (corporate sponsored) Intellectual Property Committee and USTR and the ascension of the WTO, the power of enforcement of IPR switched hands from the WIPO to the WTO. This migration did not split the tasks of the WIPO effectively in half; it spawned an agreement in sharing the task. What became the main focus for the IO following the ascension of the WTO was spreading IP culture, as opposed to IPR enforcement.

It is probable that change to the WIPO followed according to the changes occurring in international fiscal policy. The turning point was the Uruguay Round of the GATT/WTO, an extension of the need to change the agreement to fit the needs for the trade of service industries and IP. These two categories are the most important elements defining the past two decades: they represent the new economic strategies of both the Asian tigers (export-oriented industry based upon a rapid growth in high technology manufacturing) and the US hegemony (tertiary sector industry, particularly entertainment).

It is necessary to reprise the lesson from the recent history of the WIPO: the changes occur to accommodate what is predicted as future economic developments. Namely, IP is seen as a necessary legal framework for high technology industry (therefore the export-oriented industry, or EOI, strategy), and has become part of the less-developed countries' (LDC) concerns for becoming competitive players in the 21st century world market. Neoliberal policy is what allowed for the EOI strategy to appear in the 1980's; to an extent the WIPO's adaptations can be seen as a functionalist evolution in an attempt to fit this ideology. It can be estimated that such evolution predicates that the IO has the ability to keep up with economic and political conditions to the extent of giving legitimacy to the contemporary legal atmosphere.

With a semblance of adherence to Neoliberalism comes a consequential critique of the WIPO. Keeping this idea in mind, how efficient does the WIPO seem given its optimal goals, its real tasks, and its changes to accommodate the new environment? Advocates for the WIPO find that the specialized tasks of the WIPO commiserate with the organization's broad goals—in particular, the IO's ability to concentrate upon helping LDCs meet their treaties' criteria has helped lower the entry costs associated with trade reciprocity. Another example of this boosted efficiency is the new terms of IP conflict arbitration. []

Time is the most valuable commodity for winning suit in copyright and patent law, due to the favor given to earlier filing dates. Second most valuable is secrecy in proceedings: for the case of patent law, only after the successful patenting of a novel idea should it be available to the public. Disclosure of the IP before this term would naturally compromise the idea's value and novelty. Expedited arbitration rules have been developed by the WIPO to accommodate for both of these necessities. So-called Fast-Track Arbitration (part of the 1994 reform to arbitration rules) allows for consensual mediation between two parties, leading to an award with 78 days of filing suit. Although limiting the scope of an international conflict to a single private forum leaves questions about the actual enforceability. Nonetheless, the codification of the procedures behind quick mediation makes it readily enforceable and legally binding. Such arbitration can be seen as a double-edged sword: faster results at the cost of formal procedure. Quantitatively speaking, the arbitration has produced critical results, and has served its purpose since inception. Only through the WIPO's innovation in legal matters is the existence of a plurality of IP mediation procedures possible.

On the other hand, criticism of the WIPO's specialized roles exists. Intellectual property as an area of law draws much conflict due to the apparent lack of material artifacts. The regime finds legitimacy based upon its theoretical incentive for individuals to innovate. If this were to be disproved, then IPR could be established as a regime hindering innovation as opposed to aiding it. For institutions to actively advocate it is to take a stance on something lacking irrefutable objective proof, and by the tenets of relativism, obscure the possibility of finding better alternatives. Economic development takes a secondary role in the WIPOs agenda, for example, in technical assistance provided to LDCs. Not unlike the criticisms pointed at the IMF in the wake of the monetary crises in Southeast Asia, May points out that the WIPO attempts to create a universal schema for developing IPR in LDCs at the cost of determining appropriate actions based upon existing domestic law.

One hundred and eighty-four nations are member states involved with the WIPO, scattered around the world. Contrasted with 194 member states in the UN, it is obvious that membership in this IO is highly inclusive. According to the WIPO convention, membership is freely extended to (a) members of the Berne Union and/or Paris Convention, (b) UN or some UN-related agencies, (c) invitation through WIPO general assembly. The diffusion of real power tends to favor the developed countries: they produce the most patents via the PCT that fund the WIPO [fig 3. MAY 117], they provide the political and legal tools necessary for LDCs to develop IP laws in accordance with international agreements, and the norms that the LDCs attempt to meet have been predominantly designed by the developed nations, as stated previously. An explicit example of the sort of power wielded by the developed nations is the usage of bilateral sanctions (from the US or EU) to enforce WTO-TRIPs linked law in LDCs. Although sanctions in this scope are wholly illegal, the practice continues to this day, even without the consent of the Appellate Court14.

Where does the main interaction between the IO and national interest lie, however? One may cite the interaction that occurs through ”soft law” and the establishment of norms into developing countries, socializing policy makers into valuing and supporting the protection of IPRs. Educating elites is the name of the WIPO's game in the WTO-dominated world, and the education in mind links IP protection with international trade. After socializing the political elites, both through the TRIPs, the WIPO's technical programs (e.g. the Co-operation for Development Program) are designed to lessen the transaction costs necessary for market entry for LDCs. In short, the WIPO's normative stance on IP is crucial simply because it rationalizes a single regime around the world, and makes interactions between all economic parties occur on a level field, making governance in both economic and legal affairs more efficient.

Beyond this soft law, the main expression of national power in the workings of the actual organization is the implementation of WIPO-maintained treaties in nations. It is difficult to argue that this is a fair characterization of the power nations wield within the organization itself, but it exhibits in practice how multilateral arrangements are interpreted by each actor, as such shows the degree autonomy of autonomy of a nation within this global institution. The case that makes this interaction a bit more clear is that of the implementation of the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty in the United States, via the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Passed in 1998, the DMCA's implementation is found in title I of the bill (WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act). This portion of the Act is focused upon meeting the requirements of the Copyright Treaty through legal measures against copyright circumvention. What makes the DMCA unique in this aspect is the invention of the digital rights management technology, backed up by legal framework. In particular, Schraeder suggests that the areas of conflict in implementing the WIPOCT include “protection to prevent circumvention of anti-copying technology; and remedies against alteration/removal of [DRM]”. 15

National independence thus comes from lawmaking in regards to DRM technologies, along with the actual innovation in DRM technology. Indeed, it seems as though the development and use of DRM in computing and law vary widely between member states of the WIPO. Variance can contravene a similar acceptance of IP culture. The obviousness of this statement is clear when contrasting the DMCA with the French's counterpart, the DADVSI bill. DADVSI varies wildly from the DMCA in that in early drafts the bill held peer-to-peer software designers responsible for infringements that occurred utilizing their software, a feature that the DMCA distinctively lacks. The differences of the bills between nations exhibit changes based upon internal economic affairs: the interests of software and media moguls. Although these laws are promulgated to control enforcement within the nation's jurisdiction, thus legal sovereignty is sustained within the borders of each nation. It is notable that these laws are not merely the sole design of the inhabitants of the country in question; they are following the benchmark standards of global institutions that were created multilaterally. It is fitting to say that the legislation incorporates a modicum of both domestic interests and collective interests on part of all member states of both the WIPO and WTO.

It has been established that the WIPO allows for autonomy in the formulation of law on a national level. In contrast to these workings at a national level, there still exist unique functions for the WIPO to hold, and rule as an organ of global governance in its own right. The two crucial main tasks the WIPO holds in the years after the founding of the WTO, as stated previously in the first half of the organizational analysis, are maintenance of multinational IPR treaties and the advocacy of law in attempts of “normalizing” IPR. It was also stated that before this modern position, it had a role in enforcing IPR. Perhaps this change can be seen as a functionalist change: in a process which May refers to as “forum proliferation, the WTO distinguished its role in international law—it became the negotiation center for treaties (as it was vertically “higher” than the WIPO), and correspondingly had better measures of ensuring compliance, namely through revoking Normal Trade Relations with dissident nations. Meanwhile, the WIPO’s resources became dedicated to training and support of IPR regimes in LDCs, due to its vast wealth and intellectual resources16.

It can be understood through all the preceding statements that the real power of the WIPO does not come from functions normally reserved for vertically ascendant organizations. The WIPO does not have the scope to deal with enforcement issues, it lacks the capacity to deal with legislation for tailored for specific countries, and it only deals with copyright registration in one realm (the PCT). What it does have the scope to accomplish is to act as a forum for international crafting of benchmarks for law, but in this task the international cooperation becomes a task that makes the WIPO transcend simple nation-to-nation interactions. The WIPO in this relationship is the sole arbiter of the specific values that all nations under its treaties are held accountable. IP infringement mediation is a good example how the WIPO has a voice that does not take on interests from one particular nation, but acting on behalf of the collective good: the mediator is objectively picked, and focuses upon finding a middle path between two conflicting view. The mediator in this way is a voice of the WIPO, something that transcends the real interests of any one country17. Also, in recent times the technical programs the WIPO has become unique voice advocating the general values of IPR. Advocacy of values in this fashion is the real locus of power for the WIPO: so-called “soft law”. Through this exercise of standards and codes of conduct the WIPO acts as a body that requires less agreement to forge relationships, thus allowing for quicker decisions. Comparing this level of informality with other IOs, the WIPO may seem to be an insignificant. Yet, a century ago many arenas of international cooperation were just as informal as the WIPO, such as the Concert of Europe. It is conceivable that the informality of the WIPO is but a stage for the organization, within a few decades it could be a body exercising formal, “hard power”.

The WIPO is an interesting organization in this light. To describe IP; analyze the WIPO’s history and tasks and then comment regarding the national identity represented; and the unique international identity derived from the relationships of its member states is to investigate not only the founding of another global body, but the beginnings of supranational law. The support for this statement comes in the form of five indicators.

First, IPR is viewed as a tool for developed countries to exploit LDCs: a Marxist [] critique of international relations views stronger countries as invariably oppressing the weaker countries, and through this class-based analysis nationhood becomes unimportant. If IPR works as a tool for the wealthy to oppress the impoverished, then support and opposition for the law itself is divided into lines beyond national identity.

Second, the history of the organization takes a path designed to accommodate the changing nature of technology. The WIPO has evolved from merely a body registering IP across national borders (via Paris and Berne conventions) into a body charged with developing the actual scope of IPR via forum proliferation.

Third, the goals of the WIPO contrasted with how it acts are only a semantic difference: the WIPO’s tasks are indeed to coordinate cooperation and promote the values of IPR. The actual control of the WIPO on the practice of laws is limited, however, as it is merely a forum for national cooperation, as opposed to being a voice wholly differentiated from group concern. The efficiency in meeting these goals is hard to evaluate. However, through contrasting the Berne convention with TRIPs, it is logical to conclude that normalizing IPR criteria has become an easier task for global organizations.

Fourth, despite the WIPO acting as an informal creator of IPR norms, the enactment of the norms remains the task of each member state. In this fashion, national sovereignty is preserved in the face of the WIPO becoming, in concert with the WTO, the crucible for IP law.

Finally, through this group concern a unique voice does emerge through the exercise of “soft law”. Examples such as arbitration proceedings reveal that the WIPO acts as a crucible for new procedures for solving IP infringement, and have found success. Yet, these successes are ones that are in the process of finding legal rationality around the world. Through bilateral compromise for the material gain of both parties, this sort of practice is worthy of continued practice.

Through this exercise of soft power, the WIPO can be seen as an IO gaining legitimacy as part of the emerging global government. It is worth remembering that the WIPO is like the intellectual property that it guards—unnatural, arbitrarily-designated for the sake of ensuring the welfare of man. Whether the institution continues to exist, in accordance to Jefferson’s quote, is determined by its utility in promoting innovation. Provided IPR remains a legitimate incentive for innovation, it is certain that the WIPO will continue to be a functional part of the UN.

[1] It's a bit of a reciprocal relationship. Reciprocity doesn't exactly predate Uruguay, but neither does the WTO. Rather, they are tied together, it seems. Combine this statement with the practical effects of reciprocity (establishing a bottom line for trade – and in this case IP – standards), then it serves the purpose of making trade a much more fair and competitive (in principle) endeavor.

[2] I presume that Marxist thought, or anything evolved from the Marxist tradition can be linked to Dependency theory.

PARTIAL LISTING OF WORKS CITED

Resolving international intellectual property disputes / by David W. Plant

Intellectual property rights : a critical history / Christopher May, Susan K. Sell

The WIPO Copyright Treaties Implementation Act : hearing before the Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade, and Consumer Protection of the Committee on Commerce, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fifth Congress, second session, on H.R. 2281, June 5, 1998

The law of copyright and the Internet : the 1996 WIPO treaties their interpretation and implementation / by Mihály Ficsor

Intellectual property : economic and legal dimensions of rights and remedies / Roger D. Blair, Thomas F. Cotter

Currents and crosscurrents in the international intellectual property regime / Peter K. Yu

1http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html

2 http://www.oecd.org/document/54/0,2340,en_2649_34797_31174966_1_1_1_1,00.html (in accordance with OECD policy)

3 Fig 1 (Currently unavailable)

4http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_16-8-2005_pg5_12

5May 8-11

6 http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/general/

7http://www.iusmentis.com/patents/epc/priority/

8 http://www.akribie.org/berichte/CopyrightSIV.pdf

9 figure 2

10http://www.wipo.int/about-wipo/en/what_is_wipo.html

11http://www.wipo.int/about-wipo/en/core_tasks.html

12May 36-38

13May 25

14May 93

15Schraeder CRS-17

16 May 32-36

17 Plant 15-30

This paper highlights the shortage of doctors, nurses and teachers hired in developing countries. It critically addresses current International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies with a focus on the need to change its practices in order to improve the situation.

The authors argue that 57 countries, most of them in Africa and Asia, face a severe health workforce crisis. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that at least 2.4 million health professionals and 1.9 million health workers, or a total of 4.3 million health workers, are needed to fill the gap. Without prompt action, the shortage will worsen. Mounting evidence suggests policies promoted and enforced by the IMF may be preventing developing countries from spending more in their national budgets. This has important consequences for health and education budgets being constrained at unnecessarily low levels when major increases are needed. Although rich countries have provided some debt cancellation, too little has been made available for too few countries in need.

The paper calls for four key courses of action:

• to demand that the IMF change and widely publicise revised macroeconomic restraint policies
• to demand that other policy options for increased public spending be fully vetted and explored
• to demand greater public stakeholder involvement in such explorations of alternative spending options
• to call on governments to raise this issue of changing IMF policies through the Executive Board of the IMF, which approves the IMF loan programs for borrowing countries.

In the 1990s, given their leading role in government reform, international institutions such as the United Nations, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization declared ICTs and political development core issues on their agenda. The evident failure of development policies in peripheral countries, on the one hand, has contributed to the debate on the need for reform of governing institutions, whilst pushing them, delegitimised as they are, in the direction of finding new strategies and solutions. The most recent developments are moving in a converging direction in terms of International Organisation strategies, as emerges from the joint proposals and schemes for identifying medium term goals for global development and the tools for their achievement and for subsequent outcome assessments. All of them have as their reference point the Millennium Development Goals, proclaimed at the Millennium Summit, organised in 2000 by the United Nations, and in the presentation of the project A Better World for All.

Innovation through ICTs - social and economic advancement has become more and more bound to technology creation, dissemination, and utilization - is at the core of the renewed focus on the role of the State and state institutions in this process. Re-defining the State - functions, responsibility, powers - as regards world market priorities and logics has become strategic for international organization intervention, and ICTs a specific tool to achieve these goals. In other words, development is principally about policy reform in which ICTs are the strategic tool for implementing organizational and institutional consolidation: e-government, e-democracy, and, more recently, e-governance, constitute the keywords of the lexicon of change. A myth is being recreated worldwide: in terms of organisation, in (re)directing the political agenda and public debate, i.e. if democratic government is to have a chance, and a future, then digital networks have to be looked to and invested in.

The UNDP reports and other data support a reciprocal relationship between technological achievement and human development, but they also emphasise that the digital divide continues to grow, condemning entire regions of the world to even greater poverty. It would seem then that these policies not only have often been inefficient, but also that the new orientation does not take into due consideration the reasons for such failure. On the contrary, attempts to bridge the digital divide may have the adverse effect of locking developing countries into a new form of dependency on the West.

Developing countries are in danger of locking themselves into a new form of e-dependency on the West as they introduce software and hardware systems that they cannot maintain for themselves and that become crucial to the very functioning of their corporate and public sector. These innovations, already problematic in contexts of advanced democracy, might lose some of democratic charge when related to developing countries. Both in terms of the re-engineering of government functions as a principal objective and in favouring means of democratic participation via ICTs, their economic integration in the world economy not only seems to widen existing disparities, but even creates new fractures and dependency.

Even the role of the UN, which has always been to safeguard economic, social, and cultural rights through the reciprocal relations of its member states, appears weakened, indeed flattened by the positions of other more influential International Organizations. As state sovereignty has been weakened by the mechanism of global governance, the UN, instead of protecting sovereign rights, has been subject to these mechanisms itself.

Political development on a national scale for most States is impossible to achieve whatever method is used, and in those few cases where it is possible, the benefits will necessarily be obtained at the expense of some other area. Is the goal really an egalitarian and democratic world, or simply a reversing of fortunes inside the present system of inequality?

“INTENSIFIED ENGAGEMENT” FOR UKRAINE

In a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Inter-Parliamentary Council (UNIC) on 5 May at NATO headquarters, parliamentarians from Ukraine and NATO member countries expressed strong support for the Alliance’s decision at the recent Bucharest Summit to begin a process of “intensified engagement” with Ukraine leading to an eventual offer of a Membership Action Plan (MAP).   NATO officials emphasize that NATO-Ukraine relations were progressing to a new level and that the term intensified engagement signals a qualitatively different relationship than the Intensified Dialogue framework.

The Council, co-chaired by Borys TARASYUK of Ukraine and Jane CORDY of Canada, and composed of senior legislators from Ukraine and NATO member countries, was briefed on NATO-Ukraine political and military co-operation by permanent members of the North Atlantic Council, including ambassadors Victoria NULAND of the United States, Linas LINKEVICIUS of Lithuania and Boguslaw WINID of Poland, as well as senior NATO officials, including Deputy Secretary General Claudio BISOGNIERO and Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy Jean-François BUREAU. NATO officials stressed the historic nature of the agreement reached in Bucharest which states that Ukraine will be offered a MAP in the future. 

UNIC members welcomed the increasing pace of discussion between NATO and Ukraine and fully supported the “open door” policy reaffirmed in Bucharest by Alliance Heads of State and Government.  They emphasized the right of Ukraine to make decisions regarding its political and security alliances free from the interference of other parties.

Parliamentarians praised Ukraine’s active contribution to collective security, particularly its participation in all Alliance operations. They welcomed Ukraine’s aspiration to further deepen its relationship with NATO and its decision to apply for a MAP.

Ukrainian members also called on Ukrainian authorities to make additional efforts to provide the necessary legal framework for the country’s further Euro-Atlantic integration, and to fully implement their country’s tasks as stated in the Ukraine-NATO Action Plan and the yearly target plans.  In particular, they stressed the need to provide the Ukrainian public with accurate and timely information about NATO in order to dispel old stereotypes and Cold-War-related misperceptions.  Parliamentarians from NATO member counties offered their assistance, but stressed that it is ultimately the responsibility of Ukrainian officials and parliamentarians to make the case for NATO membership to their public.

In conclusion, NATO parliamentarians pledged to use every opportunity to support Ukraine in its progressive and irreversible path towards NATO integration.

 

TO IMPROVE MUNITIONS STOCKPILE SAFETY

A Memorandum of Cooperation supporting a trust fund project to improve safety and physical security at munitions depots in Afghanistan was signed today at NATO HQ by the NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency (NAMSA) and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.  NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer presided over the ceremony, in the presence of Ambassadors and Representatives of all the countries  participating financially in the project.   The Memorandum of Cooperation paves the way for NAMSA to act as the project’s Executing Agent.  The project will cost €6.29 million and will be implemented over 24 months. 

Belgium, Canada and Luxembourg will act as the Co-lead Nations for the project which aims to enhance the safety and physical security at Afghanistan’s two main national munitions depots, as well as to significantly increase their capacity and effectiveness.  It will also provide assistance to the Afghan Ministry of Defence in carrying out an assessment which will form the basis of a national action plan for ammunition stockpile management, including the disposal of surplus and unserviceable stocks.  Finally, it will review the training needs of the Afghan National Army and the civilian workforce in its depots and provide appropriate training in ammunition logistics and technical duties.

The project will be implemented under the umbrella of NATO’s Afghan Cooperation Programme as set out in the September 2006 Declaration by NATO and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and is the first such Trust Fund of its kind established under this Declaration.  It is a manifestation of international solidarity with Afghanistan and the willingness of NATO and the international community to provide concrete assistance to Afghanistan which will strengthen its ability to achieve security and stability.

All NATO/PfP Trust Fund projects are based on voluntary contributions from NATO Member and Partner Nations, as well as other interested countries and organizations.  In addition to the three Co-lead Nations (Belgium, Canada and Luxembourg), Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Iceland, Japan, Slovakia, Sweden and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia[1][1] have pledged funding for this project.

The NATO/PfP Trust Fund mechanism was established in 2001.  It is a vehicle to assist NATO’s partner nations in the safe destruction of stockpiles of anti-personnel landmines, small arms, and munitions or to help manage the consequences of defence reform.  To date, NATO Member and Partner Nations, as well as other nations and international organizations, have pledged more than €38 million to ongoing and completed Trust Fund projects.

The Secretary General of NATO, Mr. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, will travel to Madrid on  Thursday, 8 May. He will meet with  Prime Minister José Luis  Rodriguez Zapatero, Minister of Foreign Affairs Miguel Angel Moratinos and Minister of Defence Carme Chacón Piqueras.

APPOINTMENT OF AMBASSADOR FERNANDO GENTILINI

The NATO Secretary General, Mr. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, is pleased to announce the appointment of Ambassador Fernando Gentilini of Italy to the position of NATO Senior Civilian Representative in Afghanistan.

Mr. Gentilini, whose biography is attached, has a long and distinguished career in the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including senior positions as the European Union High Representative's Personal Representative to Kosovo in 2004 and most recently as Deputy Diplomatic Advisor to the Italian Prime Minister since August 2006.

Mr. Gentilini replaces Ambassador Daan Everts who served as NATO's second Senior Civilian Representative in Afghanistan from August 2006 to December 2007.

Following Ambassador Everts' departure in December 2007, Ambassador Maurits R. Jochems ably fulfilled the duties of NATO Senior Civilian Representative in an acting capacity from January 2008.

As Senior Civilian Representative, Mr. Gentilini will be responsible for carrying forward the political-military aspects of the Alliance's assistance to the Afghan Government.  He will work closely with ISAF, the United Nations and other co-ordinating bodies established by the international community and the Afghan Government in Kabul.

Fernando GENTILINI

-         Born in Subiaco (Rome), Italy, 2nd March 1962;

-         Graduated in Law from the University of Rome, 1986;

-         Joined the Italian Diplomatic Service in February 1990; first assigned to Department of Human Resources and Administration, Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome;

-         Second Secretary (Economics and Trade) at the Italian Embassy in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), July 1992;

-         Promoted to First Secretary of Legation, January 1995;

-         First Secretary at the Italian Permanent Representation to the E.U. in Brussels, December 1996;

-         Seconded as Italian Representative within the Policy Planning and Early Warning Unit at the E.U. Council Secretariat, under the authority of the High Representative for the E.U. Common Foreign and Security Policy, December 1999;

-         Promoted to Counsellor of Legation, Rome, July 2000;

-         Posted to MFA's Department of European Countries as Head of Unit for Western Balkans, Rome, December 2002;

-         Seconded as E.U. High Representative's Personal Representative to Kosovo, April 2004;

-         Promoted to Counsellor of Embassy, July 2004;

-         Seconded to the Policy Unit at the Office of the Secretary General/High Representative for the CFSP in Brussels, December 2004;

-         Seconded to the Presidency of the Council as Deputy Diplomatic Advisor to the Italian Prime Minister, Rome, August 2006;

-         Second Lieutenant (short service) of the Italian Army (Artillery), March 1987;

-         Awarded the Italian Honour, "Cavaliere Ufficiale dell'Ordine al Merito della Repubblica" in 2006.

"After the Bucharest NATO Summit : European and American Missile Defense Perspectives"Prime Minister,

Ministers,

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

                        It is a great pleasure to be in your midst today – an important conference, important subject, well-timed conference, important decisions.  I am pleased to hear that the Czech Republic has completed negotiations with the United States of America on the establishment of a radar site for the so-called US Ballistic Missile Defence system.  The signing of that agreement in the near future will be a major step forward I think in the process of building a missile defence architecture in Europe.  It will also be a major step for the bilateral relationship between the Czech Republic and the United States.  But it is also a major development for NATO.  Because I think it opens a new chapter for the Alliance in meeting the new threats of the 21st century.

                        When people think of NATO, they usually think of responding to immediate challenges – a crisis in the Balkans, the 9/11 attacks, or creating security in Afghanistan.  This view of NATO as a kind of fire brigade is only natural: after all, NATO has unique capabilities that it can bring to bear in responding to immediate problems.  And, hence, it is no surprise that the North Atlantic Alliance is very much in demand.

                        But the image of NATO as a mere fire brigade is too narrow.  Yes, of course, we must remain capable of responding to imminent threats.  But we must also look ahead – we must scan the strategic horizon for potential new challenges, and we must develop common approaches to deal with them – making sure we take into account the time needed to develop those solutions.  People sometimes tend to neglect this dimension
of NATO.  And yet it is precisely this pro-active dimension of the Alliance that will
be increasingly important as we enter a new strategic environment. 
In tomorrow's uncertain world, we can not wait for threats to mature before deciding how to counter them.

                        The nature of this new environment is already beginning to take shape.  It will be an environment that will be marked by the effects of climate change, such as territorial conflicts, rising food prices, and migration; it will be characterised by the scramble for energy resources; by the emergence of new powers; and by non-state actors trying to gain access to deadly technologies.

                        It will also be a security environment characterised by the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction.  The nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea threaten to set in motion a “domino effect” that will be difficult to contain.  And the number of states that possess ballistic missiles is already growing - slowly but surely.

                        The threat of a ballistic missile attack touches at the very heart of NATO’s collective defence commitment.  It touches, in other words, at the very core of our Alliance.  That is why we must respond to this challenge – and why we must respond together.

                        We have been working on the best way forward on missile defence – bilaterally and within NATO – for a considerable period of time.  We have done so against the backdrop of a political and public debate that had from time to time its share of irrationality.  Too many participants in that debate allowed ideological considerations to cloud a political and military judgement.

                        As the countries that would host elements of the planned US missile defence system, the Czech Republic and Poland have to bear the brunt of that growing debate.  I know that this is not easy.

                        Victor Hugo once said that nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.  Perhaps that is why neither a sometimes erratic debate nor Cold War-style threats could ultimately, or should ultimately undermine the project.  And at NATO’s Bucharest Summit – and the Prime Minister referred to the Summit more than once – which just took place one month ago, the Allies made it very clear that missile defence is a collective effort that will not be derailed.

                        The specific deployment of the US “Third Site” may involve only a few Allies, yet as I said the proliferation of ballistic missiles is a reality that concerns us all.  Our security is indivisible.  And this fundamental principle will guide our work on missile defence in the months and years ahead.

                        So where do we stand now, and where are we going?

                        First, it is clear that the US “Third Site” will make a substantial contribution to the protection of many European Allies.  It is also clear, however, that it will not cover all of them.  And that is why we need to consider options for a more comprehensive coverage.  Simply put, we need both the US missile defence elements and other sensors and interceptors.  And this means that we need to link the US system with other national systems and NATO systems.  Several architectures are currently being studied, with a view to inform further debate and potential decisions at the next NATO Summit in 2009.

                        Now the question of course is, is such a linking of different systems feasible?  The answer is clearly “yes”.  NATO has a longstanding experience in promoting interoperability, and in integrating different national assets into one coherent capability.  First tests have successfully joined NATO’s so-called Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence system (ALTBMD), the US missile defence, and French and Dutch assets.  And as far as the costs and performance are concerned, it is clear that an interconnected, NATO-wide system would be considerably cheaper and more effective than if individual nations were to develop and field their own territorial missile defence system.

                        My second point, we need of course to look at the challenge of political-military consultations and command and control.  An incoming missile will not allow us enough time to convene a meeting of the North Atlantic Council.  We therefore need to develop procedures that enable us to react quickly.  But here, too, NATO does not need to start from scratch.  After all, the Alliance now has almost 60 years of experience in crisis management procedures, and this will certainly inform our discussions and help us to find the right solution.

                        My third point, we need to engage Russia.  Russia has made it clear on many occasions that she remains suspicious of the US “Third Site”.  It is therefore essential that we continue to involve Russia, both in the NATO-Russia Council and in US-Russian bilateral talks, to explain the system and to alleviate their concerns.  At the NATO Bucharest Summit, we made it clear that we are willing to go even further – in fact, we are ready to explore the potential linking of US, NATO and Russian missile defence systems.  Sooner or later, Moscow will come to realise that Russia, too, is not immune to the consequences of proliferation.  Once that happens – and I hope that it won’t take long – Russia will consider NATO’s offer.  And our ongoing cooperation with Russia on tactical missile defence could then be expanded to include the strategic level as well.

Prime Minister,

Foreign Minister,

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

                        Missile defence is not the entire answer to the proliferation challenge.  It has to be seen in the wider context of arms control and non-proliferation.  And, needless to say, our approach to missile defence will also be determined by the evolution of the threat.  For these reasons, the debate about the right approach to missile defence will certainly not end today.  However, the parameters of the debate have already changed.  Instead of talking about the desirability of missile defence, we are now focussing on how to make it work.

                        In other words, we have moved the issue of missile defence out of the abstract ideological debate and into the real world.  And this is where it belongs:  In a world where fanaticism and technological progress can confront us with challenges of unprecedented magnitude, missile defence is an expression of our political will to defend our vital strategic interests; of our moral responsibility to protect our populations; and of our conviction that collective defence in the Alliance remains the best way to safeguard the security of future generations.  I thank you very much for your attention.

BRUXELLES (AFP) — Pour la deuxième fois en deux semaines, les Occidentaux sont montés mercredi au créneau pour défendre la Géorgie face à la Russie, accusée d'exacerber les tensions dans le Caucase en raison de sa politique vis-à-vis des régions séparatistes géorgiennes.

Après l'annonce, la veille, par Moscou d'un accroissement des effectifs du contingent militaire russe en Abkhazie et en Ossétie du sud, l'Otan a dénoncé mercredi des "initiatives prises par la Russie" qui "augmentent les tensions" et "sapent l'intégrité territoriale" de la Géorgie, une ex-république soviétique.

"Les Alliés sont unanimes dans leur soutien à l'intégrité territoriale de la Géorgie et ne reconnaîtront ni ne soutiendront les initiatives qui sapent cette souveraineté", a ajouté le porte-parole de l'Alliance atlantique, James Appathurai.

Mardi, le diplomate en chef de l'Union européenne Javier Solana avait déjà, devant le chef de la diplomatie russe Sergueï Lavrov qu'il recevait dans le cadre d'échanges réguliers UE-Russie, désapprouvé l'annonce faite par Moscou, qualifiée de "pas sage actuellement".

Même si, comme M. Lavrov l'a assuré, ce renforcement du contingent restait "dans les limites" prévues par les accords internationaux qui ont instauré une force de maintien de la paix russe dans ces régions, M. Solana a jugé qu'il ne contribuait pas à "diminuer les tensions".

La Maison Blanche s'est elle aussi dite mercredi "inquiète des informations en provenance de la région".

C'est la deuxième fois depuis la mi-avril que les Occidentaux, pressés par Tbilissi de réagir, fustigent l'attitude de Moscou dans ces deux régions considérées comme des zones de "conflits gelés" depuis les guerres qui ont opposé les forces géorgiennes aux séparatistes au moment de l'effondrement de l'URSS.

Le 18 avril, l'Union européenne et les Etats-Unis étaient déjà intervenus pour exhorter à la Russie de revenir sur l'annonce d'une coopération "avec les autorités de fait d'Abkhazie et d'Ossétie du Sud", notamment dans le domaine économique.

Une décision interprétée par Tbilissi comme une volonté de "légaliser une annexion de facto" de ces territoires, et une riposte à la promesse des dirigeants de l'Otan, début avril, d'intégrer un jour la Géorgie en son sein.

Entre-temps, le 20 avril, la destruction d'un drone géorgien au-dessus de l'Abkhazie, attribuée par Tbilissi à un missile russe, a contribué à alimenter les tensions.

"Il est difficile de croire que" l'augmentation du contingent russe a pour "but de maintenir la paix, c'est plutôt le début d'une agression militaire de grande ampleur", a déclaré mercredi à l'AFP le représentant spécial du président géorgien Mikheïl Saakachvili, David Bakradzé, dépêché à Bruxelles.

Après une rencontre avec M. Solana, M. Bakradzé a ajouté que la mise en oeuvre par la Russie des mesures annoncées n'était qu'"une question de temps, sauf si elle reçoit des signaux très clairs de l'Union européenne, des Etats-Unis et des principaux acteurs internationaux que leur application aura un prix" et des "conséquences négatives" dans ses relations avec ses grands partenaires.

Le Géorgien a aussi évoqué l'envoi futur dans la région d'"experts" européens en matière de règlement de conflits, peut-être dans le cadre de missions de gestion des frontières ou des douanes.

En attendant la concrétisation de tels projets, qui pourrait prendre du temps, M. Bakradzé considère que les déclarations de l'UE et de l'Otan "nous aident à démontrer aux Russes qu'il y a des choses qui ne seront pas et ne peuvent pas être acceptées par la communauté internationale".

La Géorgie a par ailleurs annoncé mercredi qu'elle bloquerait l'entrée de la Russie à l'OMC, tant que ce pays n'infléchirait pas sa politique de rapprochement avec les territoires séparatistes pro-russes en Géorgie.

"Vous pouvez me croire : aucun pas en avant vers une adhésion de la Russie à l'OMC ne sera fait, tant que la Russie ne reviendra pas sur ses décisions", a averti le ministre géorgien par intérim des Affaires étrangères, Grigol Vachadzé.

BRUXELLES (AFP) - Les dernières décisions et déclarations de la Russie concernant les républiques séparatistes d'Abkhazie et d'Ossétie du sud ont "sapé l'intégrité territoriale de la Géorgie", a dénoncé mercredi le porte-parole de l'Otan.

 "Les initiatives prises (par la Russie) et la rhétorique concernant la menace du recours à la force ont augmenté les tensions et sapé l'intégrité territoriale de la Géorgie", a indiqué le porte-parole de l'Alliance, James Appathurai, lors d'une conférence de presse.

"Les Alliés sont unanimes dans leur soutien de l'intégrité territoriale de la Géorgie et ne reconnaîtront ni ne soutiendront les initiatives qui sapent cette souveraineté", a-t-il ajouté.

Le porte-parole a rappelé que le secrétaire général de l'Otan Jaap de Hoop Scheffer avait demandé à la Russie de "revenir en arrière", notamment concernant le renforcement annoncé le 16 avril de ses relations avec l'Abkhazie et l'Ossétie du Sud, en riposte à la reconnaissance de l'indépendance du Kosovo par l'Occident. Les relations entre Moscou et Tbilissi ont connu un regain de tension depuis cette date.

La Russie, accusant Tbilissi de préparer une "opération militaire" contre l'Abkhazie, a encore fait monter la tension d'un cran en annonçant mardi qu'elle allait augmenter son contingent sur le territoire abkhaze ainsi qu'en Ossétie du Sud, autre région séparatiste de Géorgie. Cette décision "n'apaise pas les tensions, cela les augmente", a insisté le porte-parole de l'Otan.

En réponse à l'augmentation annoncée du contingent russe, la Géorgie a accusé mercredi Moscou de préparer "une agression militaire de grande ampleur". Mais pour l'instant, l'Otan n'est "pas informée de mouvements de troupes géorgiennes" ni que "les mouvements de troupes russes aient eu lieu", a indiqué M. Appathurai. "L'Otan observe la situation avec inquiétude et souhaite que toutes les parties évitent le genre de rhétorique qui aiguise les tensions et évitent de recourir à toute initiative qui pourrait compromettre une situation qui est déjà fragile", a-t-il ajouté.

A la suite de conflits séparatistes au début des années 1990, une force d'interposition russe de 2.000 à 3.000 hommes a été déployée en Abkhazie sous mandat de la CEI (ex-URSS, moins les Etats Baltes). En Ossétie du Sud, c'est une force tripartite (Ossètes, Géorgiens et Russes) qui a été installée.

The Secretary General of NATO, Mr. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, will travel to Prague on Monday, 5 May 2008.

During his stay in the Czech Republic he will meet President Vaclav Klaus, Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, Minister of Defence Vlasta Parkanova, as well as members of the parliament.

Moreover, the Secretary General will deliver a keynote speech at the international conference “Missile Defence after the Bucharest NATO Summit: European and American Perspectives”.

On behalf of NATO, I condemn in the strongest terms the Taliban attack in Kabul this morning.

The Taliban has demonstrated once again that they will use the most extreme violence to oppose Afghanistan's freedom and democratic development.

I am very pleased that President Karzai has escaped unhurt and I express my condolences to the families of any who have lost their lives and my deep sympathies to those who have been injured, possibly including some Members of Parliament.

NATO will continue to support the Afghan Government and people in defending their security and their democracy.

The press release has a photo of the district police officer who lead the raid and it was put on the wall in the community center to be shown to other police who might want to raid the center.  The community center staff has a strategy to deal with new visits and list of contacts of people and organization who could help in case of police visit. There are two duty staff at nights and Labrys is in high alert due to possible revenge from the police which other human rights activists warned Labrys about.  Meanwhile the reactions to the visit are coming from all over the world with LGBT organizations expressing solidarity and asking what they can do about the situation.

In my opinion the reactions and the impact that the information has made will improve Labrys advocacy because the Kyrgyz human rights activists who usually do not relate LGBT matters to their priority work can now understand that LGBT activists experience the same harrassment and pressure from the state that the other organizations do.  Also Labrys realized that there is a lot of support from both within and outside of Kyrgyzstan and will be more active in its advocacy work.   

A day earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, who was on a visit to London, publicly expressed skepticism over the conduct of the Afghan war by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He warned that NATO is "courting disaster". On Monday, addressing a student gathering in Beijing's Tsinghua University, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf urged Chinese and Russian help in stabilizing Afghanistan. But in the ultimate analysis, it is the sensational revelation by erstwhile Northern Alliance leaders about their ongoing contacts with the Taliban that makes nonsense of the battle lines of the Afghan war.

The United States' monopoly of the Afghan war is beginning to come under serious public challenge. The "lameduck" George W Bush administration in Washington faces an uphill task to gain mastery over the equations developing on multiple levels.

Meanwhile, some questions arise. Are these statements and public stances essentially more prudent and prophylactic than provocative? Do they stem from a genuine concern in the region that the US is simply unable to forge ahead in the war? Or do they signify the stirrings of a concerted regional challenge to the US mission?

Ahmadinejad's statement is the first time that Tehran has questioned frontally at the highest level of leadership the raison d'etre of the US intervention in Afghanistan. He suggests that terrorism is the pretext rather than the reason for the US intervention. The Iranian leader alleges that the US intervention was more geopolitical. Considering that Iran (under former president Mohammed Khatami) had provided logistical support for the US intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, Wednesday's statement signifies an important rethink in Tehran. Ahmadinejad has implicitly absolved the Taliban regime of any role as such in the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York.

Compared with the nuanced Iranian statement, Babacan has taken a stance from the perspective of Turkey being a major NATO power. Babacan said in an interview with the London-based Telegraph newspaper that NATO is courting disaster by relying too much on force to defeat the Taliban. He distanced Ankara from the US counterinsurgency strategy by stressing that the shift to a "more militaristic approach would backfire and ultimately undermine the Afghan government".

Babacan forcefully rejected the US criticism that Turkey has refused to deploy troops in the troubled southern and eastern regions of Afghanistan. He insisted on the continued logic of Turkey's Afghan policy, which focuses on reconstruction activities aimed at "winning their [Afghans'] hearts and minds". Significantly, he warned that Afghans could "start to perceive the [NATO] security forces as occupiers" and that the situation would become "very complicated". But he, too, avoided any criticism of the Taliban as such.

Interestingly, Babacan made these remarks in an interview in which he underlined Turkey's growing alienation from Europe. Also, on Monday, another round of Turkish-Iranian consultations were held in Ankara regarding bilateral cooperation in regional security, which is already quite substantial.

Musharraf has gone a step even further. He expressed the hope that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) could play a role in stabilizing Afghanistan. He added, "If the SCO can come along, then we would need to ensure that there is no confrontation with NATO." SCO comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as full members and Iran and Pakistan as "observers".

Musharraf is famous for making impromptu remarks, but the fact that he made such a statement in Beijing merits attention. Pakistan has been seeking full SCO membership. The indications are that Beijing is, in principle, supportive of the Pakistani claim. Reports had also just appeared that Washington is pressing for an intrusive role to monitor the safety of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

Musharraf has virtually endorsed a call by Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov at the recent NATO summit meeting in Bucharest (April 2-4) to the effect that the "Six plus Two" format of the 1997-2001 period (with the "six" being the countries bordering Afghanistan and the "two" being Russia and the US), which aimed at bringing about intra-Afghan reconciliation between the Taliban and its opponents, be expanded into a new "Six plus Three" format that would now include NATO, along with China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and the US.

Moscow and Tashkent have a coordinated approach in this regard. Washington finds itself in a quandary to respond to the Uzbek offer of cooperation with NATO, which would mean virtual abandonment of alliance's plans to expand into the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia.

However, in a hard-hitting speech on Monday at Maxwell-Gunter air force base in Montgomery, Alabama, which was devoted entirely to the US strategy in Afghanistan, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice precisely invoked the great Cold War icons - George Marshall, Harry S Truman, George Frost Kennan and Dean Acheson. She sent a stunning message to Moscow that NATO's victory in Afghanistan is "not only essential, it is attainable".

Rice pointed out, "Successes in Afghanistan will advance our broader regional interests in combating violent terrorism, resisting the destabilizing behavior of Iran, and anchoring political and economic liberty in South and Central Asia. And success in Afghanistan is an important test for the credibility of NATO."

Rice coolly ignored the Russian-Uzbek offer of cooperation. Against the above background, this week's statement in Kabul by the top leadership of the erstwhile Northern Alliance (NA) merits close attention.

The NA leaders enjoy the support of Russia, the Central Asian states and Iran - and Turkey to an extent. Sayyed Agha Hussein Fazel Sancharaki, spokesman of these groups which now come under the umbrella of the United National Front (UNF), revealed to the Associated Press (AP) that former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani and the top NA commander from Panjshir, Mohammed Qasim Fahim (who also holds the position currently as a security advisor to President Hamid Karzai) have been meeting Taliban and other opposition groups (presumably, the Hezb-i-Islami led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar) during recent months for national reconciliation. He claimed these meetings have involved "important people" from the Taliban.

Indeed, Fahim (who was the chief of intelligence under the late Ahmad Shah Massoud) and Rabbani (who belonged to the original "Peshawar Seven" - mujahideen leaders based in Pakistan in the 1980s) would have old links with Hekmatyar and top Taliban leaders like Jalaluddin Haqqani. Rabbani told AP that the six-year war must be resolved through talks.

"We in the National Front and I myself believe the solution for the political process in Afghanistan will happen through negotiations," he said. Rabbani added that the opposition leaders would soon discuss and possibly select a formal negotiating team for holding talks with the Taliban. He found fault with Karzai for not pursuing dialogue with the Taliban. "I told Karzai that when a person starts something, he should complete it. On the issue of negotiations, it is not right to take one step forward and then one step back. This work should be continued in a very organized way."

It stands to reason that regional powers - especially Russia, Uzbekistan an