Consult WIPO CP - Michigan 7 2024 CGO

CONSULT WIPO CP
Notes:
What is WIPO?
The World Intellectual Property Organization is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations. WIPO has substantial influence over IPR I-LAW, and generally advocates for the harmonization of its member nations.
What does the CP do?
It enters binding consultations with WIPO over whether or not to pass the plan. The neg can only fiat the consultation but not the implementation. The CP argues that WIPO will agree and make any necessary changes (this is important to beat the perms), because they advocate for the strengthening of IPR in its member countries. The vast majority of affs this year create standards that align more with those of the EU, something WIPO is strongly in favor of.
Net benefit(s)?
EXTERNAL:
-PTX DA: Self-explanatory, avoids fights in congress if they aren’t passing the plan. Avoids PC link if the president doesn’t have to fight for a majority congress vote.
INTERNAL:
-Developing countries- The CP argues that developing nations in the global south will model after the US post-consultation. IPR in developing nations vastly grows their innovative capabilities, and 1NC Wong says that’s k2 solve numerous impacts
-UN leadership- In this scenario, the CP asserts that China’s takeover of WIPO is happening now, and a consultation reaffirms the US’s presence within the organization. China takeover of WIPO means they takeover the world, usher in totalitarian control, etc. This scenario isn’t as ideal as the former, as the internal link chain and evidence is rather weak.
1NC
1NC – Developing Countries
Text: The United States federal government should enter into a prior and binding consultation with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) over [PLAN]. The United States federal government will accept the World Intellectual Property Organization’s recommendation.
US can help move developing countries policies towards innovation through WIPO.
Ezell and Cory 19 [Stephen Ezell is vice president for global innovation policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). Nigel Cory is an associate director covering trade policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation; “The Way Forward for Intellectual Property Internationally”; April 2019; ITIF; https://itif.org/publications/2019/04/25/way-forward-intellectual-property-internationally/---LS
Many policymakers, especially those in developing countries, need to move toward an economic framework that focuses and elevates innovation policy and discards the traditional framing of intellectual property as a bargaining chip that countries should hold onto for trade negotiations with developed countries. This traditional (zero-sum) framing of intellectual property misses the point that IP is one part of a broader policy framework that is needed (along with institutional capacity, education, infrastructure, etc.) to support innovation and productivity growth. In fact, countries should make improving their intellectual property rules, enforcement, and administration separate from trade agreements part of their own economic policy reforms, simply because doing so would help their own economy and so should be part of countries’.
The target audiences for renewed engagement on an updated framing of intellectual property, trade, and innovation are many and varied—representing in many ways a mirror image of the typology of groups that oppose stronger IP outlined earlier. The United States and likeminded countries should develop a tailored strategy to identify stakeholders to engage as part of the effort to reframe the debate around IP, trade, and innovation, as the target audience in each country is not clearly bifurcated, both within and between developed and developing countries. Even within developing countries that have traditionally pushed for weak or no intellectual property protections, such as China, India, and South Africa, there are stakeholders—individual policymakers, academics, government agencies, trade associations, and research institutions—that recognize both the need to focus on innovation and that IP plays a key supporting role. For example, there can exist government agencies in developing countries that recognize that IP is a critical enabler of innovation, despite the country’s formal antagonistic position toward IP in international debates, such as between ministries of science and technology on one side and ministries of industry or health on the other. There can also be cleavages between the positions held by a country’s representatives at WTO, WIPO, and UNCTAD and officials from the respective agencies that actually work on economic policy, science and technology, and intellectual property back in the country’s capital. Supporters of a robust IP system need to work to strengthen these voices.
Developing economies cap existential threats. Pandemics, international insecurity, terrorism.
Wong ’22 [Ruth and Eevee Ciara; September 1; Senior Cloud Systems Engineer, M.A. from Johns Hopkins University, M.Sc. in Bioinformatics from Western Univrsity; Machine learning engineer at PayPal, writer for the Effective Altruism Forum; Substack, “Rethinking longtermism and global development,” https://sunyshore.substack.com/p/rethinking-longtermism-and-global]
We agree that more powerful countries are likely to have more influence on the long-term future than less powerful ones, and that a country’s economic development is a strong indicator of its technological and geopolitical power. However, this does not mean that developed countries matter morally more than developing ones. Rather, it underscores the importance of global development—the process of low- and middle-income countries becoming high-income ones. Similarly, although workers in high-income countries generally have higher labor productivity, a large component of this is the place premium. That is, a worker’s productivity increases—sometimes by a factor of 15 or more—when they move from a poor country to a rich country, simply because they are being paid more for the same work. Once again, this speaks to the importance of global development and helping people escape poverty. This essay describes why it’s important for the long term future for everyone to be in a relatively high-income country, and what it might look like for global development to be a longtermist issue. Global development benefits the long-term future by increasing diversity in global institutions and reducing civilization’s vulnerability to global catastrophic risks like armed conflict and pandemics. What is global development? Effective altruists regularly talk about “global health and development” as a category of ways to do good. However, it’s clear now that development drives health much more than health drives development. Global development is the process by which low- and middle-income countries turn into high-income countries. The best modern example of this are the Asian countries of South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and China. These have been compared with other Asian countries that were thought to be “tiger cubs” in the ‘90s such as the Philippines and Thailand in the book How Asia Works, by Joe Studwell. In this book, Joe lays out a recipe for development. Here’s the summary from Bill Gates: Create conditions for small farmers to thrive. Use the proceeds from agricultural surpluses to build a manufacturing base that is tooled from the start to produce exports. Nurture both these sectors (small farming and export-oriented manufacturing) with financial institutions closely controlled by the government. Importantly, in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and China, these steps were taken by relatively uncorrupted leaders who made it their life’s work to develop their home country. Other countries unable to develop had leadership who were swayed by the neoliberal free-market thinking pervasive at the World Bank and IMF at the time, or who were otherwise too corrupt or incompetent to stay true in delivering their development strategy. Global development is important for the long-term future In an EA Forum post, Beckstead defines three types of benefits that an intervention can have: proximate benefits, benefits from speeding up development, and trajectory changes. Global development would have immediate benefits for people alive today: economic development in low-income countries means that fewer people would experience poverty, illness, hunger, and violence. Speeding up development is speeding up the process by which countries become high-income, so it would ensure that people realize these benefits sooner. But most of the benefits of global development are through trajectory changes that affect the long-term future. We argue that global development creates significant long-term benefits through this route. Global development can also lead to trajectory changes in the global political environment that would not happen if the development timeline were slowed down, since such changes can be locked in over time. Global development increases diversity in global governance One of the main ways global development benefits the far future is through its impact on diversity and inclusion in world institutions. As countries get richer, their people get better educated and thus better placed to participate in institutions with great decision-making power over the world, such as multinational corporations, governments, and international organizations. Increasing the diversity of decision makers in global institutions improves the quality of world governance, which enables humanity to better navigate existential risks and other global challenges. Diversity in global institutions improves their efficacy in two ways. First, socially diverse groups outperform homogeneous groups at decision-making because they deliberate more carefully and pay more attention to facts. They also innovate more because diverse group members bring unique perspectives. Second, it improves value alignment between these institutions and humanity as a whole. It has been proposed that humanity should engage in a “long reflection” to decide what is ultimately of value before making potentially irreversible decisions regarding its future. For such decisions to reflect the values and needs of all of humanity, as many people as possible should be able to participate meaningfully in the global institutions making these decisions. Currently, about 689 million of the 8 billion people worldwide live in extreme poverty, and they cannot participate meaningfully in world governance as long as their basic needs are not met. 2.9 billion people lack Internet access, which is an important communication channel through which people make their voices heard on global issues and influence global institutions. Internet adoption is uneven across social groups: for example, women, people in rural areas, and people over age 25 are less likely to have Internet access. These disparities are especially pronounced in the 46 UN-designated Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Another barrier to diversity in global governance is the structure of institutions such as the United Nations, which is not designed to represent the general will of humanity. UN institutions represent the will of states—especially the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China. Although a diverse group of countries have voices in the UN, their citizens do not, especially in the case of authoritarian states. Global development reduces existential risks Another important way in which global development improves the long-term future is by reducing existential risks, particularly risks from pandemics and political instability. 80,000 Hours estimates that the risk of a biological existential catastrophe in the next 100 years is about 1 in 1000. Poverty makes communities more susceptible to spreading infectious diseases. For example, a study of Monrovia, Liberia, in 2014 found that people living in slums who caught the Ebola virus spread it to an average of 3.5 times more people than people living in rich neighborhoods. This is because these neighborhoods are overcrowded, contaminated, and lacking in sanitation and health care infrastructure. Also, malnutrition weakens the immune systems of poor people, thereby making them more vulnerable to disease. Raising national income improves population health and enables countries to invest more in public health infrastructure, which makes populations more resilient to potentially catastrophic pandemics. Global poverty also causes existential risk through its negative effects on international security. Many developing countries, particularly weak states, are caught in a vicious cycle of poverty, corruption, and political instability: “Inept, corrupt, or weak governance fosters poverty; widespread poverty makes effective, equitable governance more difficult to achieve; and when weak governments fail to improve their people’s lives, their legitimacy suffers.” Weak states often engender terrorism and crime because they are unable to maintain law and order in their territories. Global development in practice There are two general ways to increase the living standards of people around the world. The first is reducing barriers to immigration to high-income countries so that more people from low-income countries can move to them, take advantage of the place premium, and send money back to their countries of origin. The second is to pursue policies to increase the productivity of low-income countries so that their people are better off. Reducing barriers to migration Opening up borders in high-income countries does not decrease opportunities for those in high-income countries (although it may stress city infrastructure if not planned well). Matthew Yglesias writes about a six-month period in 1980 where 125,000 Cubans left the Cuban port of Mariel and arrived in Florida (a 7% increase in the labor workforce). These immigrants weren't particularly skilled, but no decreases in natives’ wages occurred. Yglesias explains that immigrants increase the quality and variety of goods and services available, instead of competing for native workers’ jobs. Furthermore, when the supply of hired help is increased, some college-educated women who might have otherwise been stay-at-home moms are more likely to work. Immigrants also send money back home: for example, according to the Central Bank of the Philippines, between 1975 and 1994 Filipino overseas contract workers sent remittances totaling $18.196 billion (for comparison, the Philippines is currently $46B in debt to the World Bank, IMF, etc.).10 Closing the digital divide is also one way to gain some of the benefits of open borders, by opening up opportunities for jobs in high-income countries that can be done remotely to people in lower income countries.11 Catch-up growth Economic growth improves quality of life better than public health interventions. However, it is difficult for a country to increase its income unless the country's leadership is both dedicated to this cause, and following the correct strategy towards development. As pointed out by a report from Rethink Priorities last year, land redistribution (the first step of developing a country according to How Asia Works) is unlikely to happen without some kind of major turmoil (such as a country gaining independence) as landowners have political power, even if landowners are vastly outnumbered. Here are some examples of organizations pursuing catch-up growth in low- and middle-income countries: The World Bank and IMF provide loans and advice to low and middle income countries for development. Depending on the income of the country, the loan may not have to be repaid. The Gates Foundation provides entrepreneurial support. Newer organizations working on the problem include Growth Teams and the Charter Cities Institute. Entrepreneurs such as Sierra Juice and Jaza Energy contribute by providing jobs and increasing production value of exports. Interestingly, investment in non-hydro renewable energy has actually tipped to be greater in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income countries, now that solar has become cheaper. The Center for Global Development advocates for rich-world policies that benefit low- and middle-income countries. Other organizations engage in activities such as microloans, which are shown to benefit the recipient as long as the microloan is not used to fund people joining multi-level marketing schemes. Organizations like Grameen America should stop allowing the loans to be used for this purpose. Overall there are many more initiatives meant to alleviate poverty than to encourage the economic development and democratic power necessary to end it. Given that government-led development is hard without a people in power dedicated to and capable of executing development strategy, the mechanism by which development happens is by successful businesses giving people stable jobs, especially jobs that upskill workers in their career. Conclusion While a naive application of longtermism might lead one to think that low-income countries are less important than high-income countries, this view is facile because it ignores the fact that countries can and do develop over time. Rather, longtermism speaks to the importance of developing low-income countries into high-income ones. Global development improves the long-term future of humanity by improving global governance and decreasing civilization’s vulnerability to catastrophic risks. This makes global development a pressing longtermist issue.
1NC – UN Leadership
Text: The United States federal government should enter into a prior and binding consultation with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) over [PLAN]. The United States federal government will accept the World Intellectual Property Organization’s recommendation.
China is replacing US leadership at the UN – a reaffirmed US presence in WIPO is key to prevent China from shaping international standards
Trofimov et al 20 [Yaroslav Trofimov, Drew Hinshaw and Kate O’Keeffe, 9-29-2020, "How China Is Taking Over International Organizations, One Vote at a Time", WSJ, https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-china-is-taking-over-international-organizations-one-vote-at-a-time-11601397208]
When China curtailed political freedoms in Hong Kong this summer, two rival declarations circulated at the United Nations Human Rights Council. One, drafted by Cuba and commending Beijing’s move, won the backing of 53 nations. Another, issued by the U.K. and expressing concern, secured 27 supporters. China’s show of strength was just the latest diplomatic triumph in Beijing’s drive to sway the system of international organizations in its direction. As the Trump administration stepped back from many parts of the multilateral order established after World War II, China has emerged a chief beneficiary, intensifying a methodical, decadelong campaign. Beijing is pushing its civil servants, or those of clients and partners, to the helm of U.N. institutions that set global standards for air travel, telecommunications and agriculture. Gaining influence at the U.N. permits China to stifle international scrutiny of its behavior at home and abroad. In March, Beijing won a seat on a five-member panel that selects U.N. rapporteurs on human-rights abuses—officials who used to target Beijing for imprisoning more than a million Uighurs at so-called re-education camps in Xinjiang. Washington has recently attempted to counter this effort at the U.N., cajoling and wooing countries around the world. Those efforts, hamstrung by damaged relationships with partners and allies, have had a limited impact so far. China’s success raises a conundrum for the U.S. and its allies. After the Soviet Union fell, these nations expected the U.N. to become a mechanism to promote democracy and human rights

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