Freedom of Information legislation puts UPOV's Restricted Area in question

by APBREBES

Today most intergovernmental organisations allow access to proceedings of its meetings. For example, in WIPO, the full report of its various meetings, including interventions and decisions of Member States are publicly available on its website.

However UPOV's practices diverges from this general trend as it continues to block access to certain meeting documents including of its Consultative Council. With the purpose of enhancing transparency in UPOV's proceedings and especially to facilitate access to UPOV's restricted documents APBREBES has from time to time been making requests under various Freedom of Information Acts. The latest requests has enabled access to restricted UPOV documents concerning the 89th session of the Consultative Council meeting that was held on 27 March 2015.

These documents are available at Documents of the Consultative Council's meeting on March 27, 2015 (CC89)

Other UPOV “Restricted Area” documents