In our capacity as accredited observers of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), we are attending the 48th session of the Committee, which is currently taking place in Geneva (18-22 May, 2026).
On Tuesday, we made the following statement on Limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives/ Limitations and exceptions for educational and research institutions and for persons with other disabilities (Agenda Item 5 and 6)
Dear Delegates,
I speak on behalf of the COMMUNIA Association for the Public Domain.
Too often, discussions at SCCR are framed as a confrontation between fundamentally incompatible approaches. Ahead of this session, we undertook a detailed comparison of the African Group proposal with EU copyright law, while other colleagues carried out similar analyses in relation to other copyright systems and the updated US Objectives and Principles.
These analyses suggest that many of the key elements of the African Group proposal build on principles that numerous Member States, including the EU, already recognise domestically. They also reveal substantial common ground between the African Group proposal and the updated US Objectives and Principles.
Therefore, it is difficult to understand the continued reluctance to engage with these converging proposals and pursue constructive text-based discussions based on their commonalities. We hope this session marks a shift in this positioning.
Thank you.
