Mobilizing Governments
From A2K Wiki
Contents |
Panelists
Speakers
- Getachew Mengitsie Alemu - Director General, Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office
- Irina Bogdanovskaia - Faculty of Law, State University Higher School of Economics, Moscow; Member, Russian Committee of the UNESCO Program Information For All
- Carlos Correa - Director, Masters Program on Science and Technology Policy and Management, University of Buenos Aires
- Luis Villaroel Villalon - Copyright Legal Advisor, Ministry of Education, Chile
Moderator
- Shamnad Basheer - Frank H Marks Visiting Associate Professor in Law, George Washington University Law School
A2K2 Conference Organizer
- Shyam Balganesh - Student Fellow, Information Society Project, Yale Law School
Panel Description
What role, if any, should governments—national, state or local—have in influencing and/or giving effect to the ideals of A2K? If A2K is in the end a commitment to distributional justice, governments ought to have a role in furthering that ideal. Governments interact with information and knowledge-embedded goods in more ways than one – as procurers, as producers and as regulators. As market participants, governments often buy and use information and knowledge goods -- their role as procurers. Additionally, governments remain actively engaged in the processes of producing and collating these resources, both directly -- as active market participants, and indirecty -- by providing others with subsidies and financial support. Lastly, in their role as regulators, governments often aid (and occassionally impede) the movement and production of information and knowledge. How can their regulatory role be transformed into a facilitative one.
How can each of these roles be directed towards the goals and objectives of A2K?
This Panel will focus on ways in which governments can contribute to achieving the goals of the A2K movement – in each of their capacities. Mechanisms might range from local policy shifts to directing national intellectual property policies toward development goals or even more expansive international efforts and the bilateral and multilateral levels. What lessons can the movement learn from these various mechanisms? Can any threads of commonality be found? Most importantly though, how might the discourse of A2K structure/locate itself in order to actively facilitate government participation and support? These are some of the issues this Panel will attempt to address.
