A2K4: Welcome and Opening Remarks

by Lea Shaver | February 10, 2010 | a2k4, conference | 1 Comment

Yale Law School’s fourth major conference on access to knowledge, A2K4: Access to Knowledge and Human Rights, was kicked off by professor Jack Balkin, founder of the Yale Information Society Project.

Blogging, video, and discussion of the conference may be followed at http://yaleisp.org. The best link for accessing these materials is: http://yaleisp.org/2010/02/a2k4main.

Twitter users are encouraged to submit questions and comments to panelists using the hash tag #a2k4. You can also follow this discussion even if you do not have a Twitter account.

Thanks are due to the Kauffman Foundation for their generous sponsorship of this conference.

We would also like to acknowledge the contributions of our A2K4 organizing partners:

3D: Trade, Human Rights, Equitable Economy; AAAS Science and Human Rights Program; Access to Knowledge for Development (A2K4D) Center, School of Business, American University in Cairo; A2K Research Program at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas School of Law in Sao Paulo; Association for Progressive Communications; Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University; Centre for Technology and Society at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas School of Law in Rio de Janeiro; Centro de Estúdios Interdisciplinários de Derecho Industrial and Económico; Consumers International; Electronic Frontier Foundation; Human Rights USA; Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School; Intellectual Property Watch; IQSensato; Knowledge Ecology International; Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School; UCT Intellectual Property Law and Policy Research; University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Information Studies.

Lea Shaver, director of the Yale ISP’s research program in Access to Knowledge, also contributed opening remarks…

Access to Knowledge has been a major focus of the Yale Information Society Project’s research for several years. A2K4 follows on the heels of three other major conferences: A2K, A2K2, and A2K3.

But for those who may be new to these events, a few words on what we mean by “access to knowledge” or “A2K.”

The unifying feature of the A2K community is a concern to preserve, protect, and advance knowledge as a public good, which all should enjoy access to.

“Knowledge” here refers not just to things like a Yale education, access to fine literature, or a high-speed Internet connection. The A2K movement is particularly concerned with the ways in which access to knowledge impacts the lives of the poor and vulnerable. For example: control over crop seeds, affordable medicines, and primary textbooks.

Historically, the access to knowledge movement emerged as a reaction to the 1994 TRIPs Agreement, which dramatically changed the way that intellectual property is regulated internationally.

The philosophy that TRIPs embodied may be described as “IP maximalism” — the belief that the more strongly intellectual property is protected, the better. The A2K movement emerged out of organizations that criticized that approach, pointing out a number of ways in which stronger IP protection was harmful to the public interest.

The best-known area of activism is around access to essential medicines, such as treatments for HIV, that was endangered by new patent rules. But the A2K movement is much broader; concerned also with the ways that IP rules limit access to educational materials, seeds, cultural works, and IT software and hardware.

The concerns of the A2K movement also extend beyond intellectual property. They encompass Internet governance, innovation and technology policy, and competition regulation.

As we’ll see over the next two days, access to knowledge impacts a number of human rights issues. This includes civil liberties such as freedom of expression and privacy. As well as issues of distributive justice such as access to education, health care, and science and culture.

So one goal for this conference is to advance A2K-related legal and policy issues that can improve the state of human rights around the world. A second goal is to explore how A2K advocates might take more conscious advantage of human rights approaches in their work.

One question on the table, however, is whether this is even a good idea. Just because A2K concerns can be articulated in terms of human rights does not compel the conclusion that they should. Indeed, there are very much two sides to this debate.

On the one hand, human rights offers an international normative and legal framework from which to critique the recent approach to IP. Because rights-based arguments have some qualities of a “trump” to them, they may open up new avenues for advocacy and legal challenge.

It is far from clear, however, that such efforts will be effective in shifting the dynamics of existing struggles over IP. Many in the A2K community are highly skeptical of human rights language, having heard many times the claim that intellectual property rights are human rights.

In the words of scholar Kal Raustiala, “It remains to be seen whether the marriage of human rights and IP will make international IP rights more socially just, or just more powerful.” Kal Raustiala, Commentary: Density and Conflict in International Intellectual Property Law, 40 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1021, 1037 (2007).

The dual-edged nature of this dilemma, however, only reinforces the conclusion that the A2K community cannot afford to ignore the human rights debate, any more than the human rights community can afford to ignore access to knowledge concerns.

This weekend’s conference is an opportunity to explore in depth the issues encountered at the intersection of access to knowledge and human rights. Our esteemed panelists will be addressing three central questions:

In what ways do intellectual property, Internet governance, technological regulation and innovation systems impact human rights — both civil liberties as well as socioeconomic entitlements?

How can leveraging rights-based methodologies, arguments, and institutions advance A2K goals? What new risks might these strategies carry?

As we move toward greater collaboration between the human rights and A2K communities, wherein lie the greatest opportunities and challenges, and how can we rise to meet them?

For the full agenda of the conference, as well as links to blog posts, archived video, and additional resources for each panel, please visit http://yaleisp.org/2010/02/a2k4main.

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