A/HRC/26/19 address barriers to claiming rights more broadly and that, while there was certainly a moral imperative, access to the benefits of scientific progress was also a legal right. E. Right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and intellectual property rights: conflict or complementarity? 27. Presentations were made by Marco Aleman (WIPO), Mpazi Sinjela (University of Lusaka) and Frederick Abbott (Florida State University College of Law). The panel was moderated by Christian Courtis (OHCHR). 28. Mr. Aleman gave a detailed overview of the patent system, explaining that, as there were stringent criteria for the granting of patents, only exceptional inventions qualified. Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights guaranteed both the right of everyone to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and the right of persons to benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary, or artistic production of which they were the author. He noted the potential tension in the applicability of those provisions and referred to general comment No. 17 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which urged State parties to ensure that their laws and systems for the protection of creators’ rights did not impede their ability to comply with core human rights obligations.7 He indicated that it was the responsibility of States to develop intellectual property systems that balanced the rights of inventors with the rights of potential beneficiaries of new technologies, and that the Berne and Paris conventions8 adopted by WIPO member States allowed significant latitude to States to implement their multilateral commitments. Mr. Aleman stated that flexibilities built into the patent system were an option that States could invoke to balance their obligations to protect intellectual property and human rights. Flexibilities within the multilateral treaties on intellectual property granted States the policy space to implement their multilateral commitments in the way that best responded to their domestic needs. 29. In his presentation, Mr. Sinjela stated that, since intellectual property rights were private rights, they should be granted in balance with the broader interests of society. Since human rights law recognized both private property rights (including intellectual property rights) and the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress, the challenge was to balance the interests of inventors with those of society. He noted that, although the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was of the view that a balance that upheld both rights was possible, the tension between them was real. That tension was apparent in areas such as access to medicines, access to books and other educational materials and plant patents where, for instance, copyright law might conflict with the right to education and patent law with the rights to food and health. The protection of traditional knowledge and folklore in intellectual property systems was another area of tension. Typically, such knowledge had been treated as public knowledge and, therefore, not included in the patent system. Mr. Sinjela proposed that that knowledge could be recognized as the contribution of developing countries in agreeing terms for more favourable and cost-effective access to life-saving drugs. He underscored the need for a more thorough-going discussion of those issues at the level of the United Nations, taking into account the views of civil society and other stakeholders, in order to build consensus 7 8 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 17 (2005) on the right of everyone to benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he or she is the author, para. 35. Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, 1886 and Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, 1883. 9