Sharing What We Know in the Spirit of Brotherhood

Canada’s Role in Knowledge for Development and Human Rights
Presented by the on behalf of Canadian students and researchers and the global research community who support open access.

See EU petition - http://www.ec-petition.eu/
http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/

Attention of Ministers of International Cooperation, International Trade, Industry, Health, Public Works, Revenue and their Shadow Cabinets, as well as the President of the Treasury Board.

Introduction
This policy brief is presented on behalf of world’s public university and scholarly community, to urge the Canadian government to adopt a policy of open access to research that we do and it funds. Our belief is that knowledge improves life for everyone, and knowledge improves when everyone can participate in it. It is the reason we research and write. Knowledge is critical to the realization of each and every right. We are endowed with reason and conscience but just as we are endowed with thirst and appetite for food, we need food and water for that endowment to have meaning. Reason and conscience develop through communicating ideas freely. We’ve come to the understanding that all of the rights enshrined in the international human rights instruments are interdependent. That understanding itself is based on what people have learned, researched, and communicated with one another globally, it is based on sharing of knowledge.

Policy recommendations.

1. We recommend that the Canadian government mandate and guarantee free access to publicly-funded research within six months of publication on the global internet. This recommendation is aligned with E.U. and U.S. proposals for the same policy.

2. No legal impediment for Canadian universities to grant authorized use by institutional members (including students) of public universities in countries with per capita GNP<$3000, to Canadian University digital library and on-line subscriptions in the context of university affiliation agreements. --- ***

Introduction

Article 1 – Universal Declaration on Human Rights, 1948
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.[1]

We recommend two policies in this document whose time has come. The first is that all publicly-funded research be available on-line and freely accessible globally within six months of publication. The second is that university libraries in Canada face no legal impediment in sharing their digital library collections and subscriptions in the context of affiliation agreements with university partners who cannot afford reasonable access to them, usually those in least-developed countries. In the global understanding of international human rights law, international cooperation for the progressive realization of rights compels states to act on their positive obligations. Where opportunities arise that are realistic, attainable and significant, under acting on such opportunities defines the obligations of progressive realization.

Positive Obligations of the Progressive Realization of Human Rights

States’ have positive obligations for progressive realization of rights . Human rights cannot be protected by reactive mechanisms alone. In recognition that the primary source of power for an individual or a people to realize basic rights to life and liberty lie within individuals’ and peoples’ basic freedom to act, communicate, participate and decide, we recognize civil and political rights1 . In recognition that the deprivation of economic, social and cultural rights places such power in the hands of some people and removes it from others, we’ve held these rights as central to self-determination.1 2 In recognition of the interdependence of states, we recognize that the obligations placed on states to ensure rights are realized would be unfair burdens on states disadvantaged by history and current status . Hence, we oblige state parties to act positively in international cooperation and international assistance1 4. In recognition that states’ primary responsibility is to their own citizens, we do expect states’ to act in the national interest. With international cooperation we do not place the expectation that the progressive realization of human rights through international cooperation should compel states to exceed resources and be unable to meet their obligations toward their own citizens. We do, however, oblige states to use available resources to the greatest extent possible; as well use legislative means to ensure these obligations are met . In the doctrine of progressive realization, where the balance of available resources and available legislation provides allows us to act toward progressive realization, in accordance with our covenants and declarations we are obligated to do so . Where the structural and legislative environment places a barrier, we must examine whether changes in the structural and legislative environment promote or detract from a consistency with human rights. Where it detracts, we must examine whether the changes required are within our means; that is they do not place our nation in a position of exceeding its resources. The final test requires rigour, otherwise states can easily absolve themselves of responsibility by way of claiming scarce resources.

In the final analysis, the scarce resources defense for limitations on progressive realization must trace itself back to human rights, and cannot be made on the basis of protection of private or political interests. In this case, we bring the rights of those who would benefit from the change and possibility of rights being threatened by the change into an examination of the balances of the tensions between rights. From such an understanding, we may be allowed to move forward confidently with policy change influenced by what we hold to be universal, and in the spirit of brotherhood.

The Role of the Intellectual Tradition in Human Rights

The policy brief presented here to the above-mentioned Honourable Members of the Canadian Parliament, is presented on behalf of the world’s scholarly and knowledge-generating community, with recognition of the global contribution of diverse modern and indigenous traditions to the global body of knowledge. It is to this community and its intellectual tradition we owe the moral and intellectual debt of centuries of challenge to tyranny of churches and feudalism. Arising from this tradition are the notions of equality, of democracy and of science and reason freed from religious and cultural dictatorship on our understanding of the world. Our collective, human and global tradition of free inquiry, expression and dissemination of knowledge has bestowed us a vision of global society based on reason and conscience, one of problem-solving, ethics and the rule of law.

The Moral Interest of the Author

As John Willinksy has put it, a commitment to scholarship carries with it a responsibility to circulate that scholarship as widely as possible – the Access Principle. The understanding of the individual scholar is that what they write stands on the shoulders of the giants that came before and thousands of other authors. The overriding moral interest of the individual author in scholarly tradition is that their work reaches every potential reader and every potential author, and that their contribution be properly credited and attributed appropriately. Both public and private industry freely benefit from our contribution, we authors understand that any barrier to the reading of our work is bad for society, and bad for us since we work in earnest that the work should contribute to the body of knowledge, and that the body of knowledge is a good for society. When our work isn’t read by those who could benefit, the value of our effort is lost on both ourselves and those who act without the information we sought to provide. Yet another loss is felt by us and each member of the public, when the money invested in us to do the research is done so in a way that not every member of the public can access the results. The limitation on dissemination by access charges detracts from our moral interest. Charging only supports our moral interest where charges enable greater dissemination and quality, than what they limit.

The possibility of dissemination without charges of access has been made possible by the communications revolution, and progressive realization is rendered meaningless if we continue to restrict the world’s most fundamental resource when it can no longer be deemed ‘scarce’.

The Material Interest of the Author
Whereas related and compelling challenges to current intellectual property regimes in the digital age are put forward by authors of literary, artistic and musical works where compensation is based on commercial enterprise, these carry separate implications for human rights balances involving material interest to the creator and the interest of the user. While we do not wish to detract from arguments for reform in this domain, we wish to indicate that no such balancing is necessary in the case of public research. The public investment in research means that we write because it is our occupation, when we publish we receive no remuneration. This negates a tension in human rights between our material interests and the public interest where collectively we share knowledge without charge in a way that reduces the burden on states resources. We do have a material interest in a well-funded public investment in research. However, we find that the public investment under the current structure where charges apply to our libraries, our colleagues and ourselves to read research has become a negative to our interests, and those of the taxpayer.

No tension between rights
Therefore, we submit that when research becomes less accessible because it is expensive, the issue is not a tension between

Article 27 (2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and the equivalent Article 15 (3) of the International Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights (ICESR) to which our nation is proudly a ratified member.

Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

and Article 27 (1) of the UDHR (and the equivalent Article 15 (2) of the ICESCR.)

Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

The tension is not between different human rights, it is between human rights and current legislation.

Human Rights of Authors vs. Intellectual Property for Market Efficiency

We understand that the tension that exists is between human rights and particular economic and political interests which enjoy the benefits of intellectual property regulations (IPRs). IPRs can serve a public good, and they are frequently defended on the basis of dynamic efficiency required for a market to deliver resources to people. However, when third-parties acquire intellectual property they do not acquire human rights to that property as expressed in Article 28(2). Court challenges can oblige states to respond to the primacy of human rights over political or economic interests. Policy change can be justified on the same basis. States are free to reform legislation achieve greater efficiency of public investment, and though ‘taxpayer rights’ are not irreducible human rights, they are frequently expressed through the expression of civil and political rights. Clarity on the distinction between human rights, which are inalienable, fundamental and inherent in the person, and statutes regarding intellectual property rights is given by General Comment 17 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights regarding Article 15 of the Covenant (equivalent of Art. 27 (2) of UDHR).

1. 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 is a human right, which derives from the inherent dignity and worth of all persons. This fact distinguishes article 15, paragraph 1 (c), and other human rights from most legal entitlements recognized in intellectual property systems. Human rights are fundamental, inalienable and universal entitlements belonging to individuals and, under certain circumstances, groups of individuals and communities. Human rights are fundamental as they are inherent to the human person as such, whereas intellectual property rights are first and foremost means by which States seek to provide incentives for inventiveness and creativity, encourage the dissemination of creative and innovative productions, as well as the development of cultural identities, and preserve the integrity of scientific, literary and artistic productions for the benefit of society as a whole.

The government is legally accountable to respect human rights and carry out positive obligations, and socially and politically accountable to spend money wisely in that regard.

The tension between third-parties and the public: where does the author stand?

The tension lies between the publisher who acquires copyright exclusivity in order to cover their publication costs (non-profit publishers), or to recover profits beyond expenditures (for-profit publishers) and those that incur economic strain, barriers and disincentives to accessing the research. Whereas open-access is supported by the human rights of authors and users, in the past the limitations on both occurred in the context of the cost of production and duplication, which required subscription revenues.

The rights of Article 27 have always been our own, and we have also had the right (though more of an occupational obligation) to enter into a legal agreement with a publisher and give up our own right to freely communicate our ideas in exchange for the services provided by the publisher. As such, with respect to society and with public resources in mind, we have participated under what may have been the best legal and economic method of achieving dissemination of the time. The assumptions were also that those with an interest in research could access public and university libraries, and that university libraries and research institutes could afford subscriptions so that those whose job it was to gather research would have access. Under this paradigm, the dynamic efficiency of the publishing market perhaps outweighed the static inefficiency and inequities. The very same model in the context of the communications revolution today creates only static inefficiency, and it fails on equity in the absence of a justification from dynamic efficiency . From an economic point of view, former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz states

“But basic research and many other fundamentals forms of knowledge are not, and almost certainly should not be, protected by an intellectual property regime. In these areas efficiency requires public support. And this public support must be at the global level.”

A system that allows our research to be accessed for free carries no implication of infringement on our rights as authors. This is because publicly-funded research that is not patentable is a non-rivalrous global public good whose ideal in purpose and efficiency is also non-excludability.

Research suggests that the market has undergone a technical evolution where overall efficiency of public investment is greater under open access than it is under copyright exclusivity. In regards to the progressive realization of rights, there was a time when a major shift towards making our research available for free may have placed an undue burden on states to furnish the full costs of publishing and disseminating paper journals to everyone who requested. That time has passed. Since research is a global public good that achieves greater efficiency when it eliminates scarcity, the argument of scarce resources as a barrier to progressive realization is nullified.

We will argue further that access to public research is directly related to the realization of social, economic, cultural, political and civil rights. Access to knowledge is a requisite for those who need it to protect their own rights as well as those of their peoples’ and especially those whom they have a responsibility to protect.

In either case, with regards to scholarship, the question has never been one of the rights of authors, innovators and creators existing in tension with needs or rights of users of their work. As the U.S. National Research Council’s Committee on the Transborder Flow of Scientific Data states:

Science operates according to a “market” of its own, one that has rules and values different from those of commercial markets. While protection of intellectual property may concern a scientist who is writing a textbook, that same scientist, publishing a paper in a scientific journal, is motivated by the desire to propagate ideas, with the expectation of full and open access to results. To commercial publishers (including many professional societies), protection of intellectual property means protection of the right to reproduce and distribute printed material. To scientists, protection of intellectual property usually signifies assurance of proper attribution and credit for ideas and achievements. Generally, scientists are more concerned that their work be read and used rather than that it be protected against unauthorized copying. These conflicting viewpoints pose challenging problems for science and the rest of society.

Competing Interests
The proposed legislation will have an impact on third-parties who are protected under copyright law, because publicly-funded research articles will be guaranteed to be freely available to the public on the internet within six months of publications. Third-parties have exercised the privilege under the law to acquire a legally binding agreement with authors to restrict access to the authors’ work through charging fees to their exclusive publication of such work, and have done so in the context of their overall role in efficiency in disseminating our research. We cannot consider the third-party as a human rights holder equated with authors; they only hold rights to intellectual property granted to them with our consent. States have agreed to an economic order in the past to facilitate dissemination through publishers in a market with the possibility of exclusive rights to publish. The current model for publicly-funded research is that we pay for the research to be conducted and then authored, and then the researcher does their best to get the research published in a journal. Finally enters into a contract with the journal allowing their exclusivity to publish the work. University libraries and other public research institutions that are funded mostly by taxpayers then purchase the subscriptions so that their institutional members may access the work. The general taxpayer without a subscription would have to pay again, often up to $50 for a single article or hundreds of dollars for an annual subscription.

Publishers hold exceptional market power in through the system of peer-review, where prestige of the journal correlates with its price7 and most journals require exclusivity from authors. The greater the public investment in research, the more the State increases the supply and quality of donated material, further increasing the publisher’s market power. Thus, though authors are in a sense voluntarily foregoing their inalienable right over making their material available as they see fit, they have had few other choices in the past. Publishing is part of their job, as evidenced by the motto “publish or perish” among the research community (and not publish and profit).

Confusion of Obligations to Protect Against Unauthorized Use
Considerable confusion occurs where States are obliged to enact intellectual property regulations that protect copyright holders from ‘unauthorized use’. In the case of public research ‘unauthorized use’ is impossible with regards to the human rights of authors. No one ought to be unauthorized from the point of view of the public research author to read and benefit from their work, the idea goes against the normative values of scholarly research. There is no remuneration to the author at all, let alone from each item of from sale. This is unlike the type of product referred to in the following comment where the actual author has commercial interest, and where remuneration would be based on authorized use through sale.

"States parties must prevent the unauthorized use of scientific, literary and artistic productions that are easily accessible or reproducible through modern communication and reproduction technologies, e.g. by establishing systems of collective administration of authors' rights or by adopting legislation requiring users to inform authors of any use made of their productions and to remunerate them adequately. (General Comment 17, CESCR, 2005)."

Authorized use protection relates to remuneration, and not of concern therefore to authors of work that is not remunerated per item of sale. The move to an open-access model for public science would mean that neither authors nor publishers of open-access content need have concern over authorized usage in the context of payments. Thus, none would be need to be penalized for reading, copying and sharing work. This in fact, presents the ideal for a non-rivalrous and non-excludable public good.

Infringement of the human rights of authors the public research context comes in the form of plagiarism, modification or misattribution of the meaning of work, which are addressed throughout this General Comment. None of these issues bear on access. Despite compelling reasons for copyright reform in academia, the confusion has added to obstacles to educators, librarians, students and researchers and has sustained an inappropriate business model that creates the distinction of authorized and unauthorized use on the basis of ability to pay. This model is unjustified by the merits of a balance based in a human right. There can be no claim that these arrangements are anything more than voluntary by States and authors in the context of the wished-for efficiency of dissemination.

Whereas the human right to benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from one's scientific, literary and artistic productions safeguards the personal link between authors and their creations and between peoples, communities, or other groups and their collective cultural heritage, as well as their basic material interests which are necessary to enable authors to enjoy an adequate standard of living, intellectual property regimes primarily protect business and corporate interests and investments. Moreover, the scope of protection of the moral and material interests of the author provided for by article 15, paragraph 1 (c), does not necessarily coincide with what is referred to as intellectual property rights under national legislation or international agreements. (General Comment 17, CESCR)

The human rights, rational and economic basis for a policy on open access
In finding that policies of open-access to publicly-funded research do not call into question a balance between paras. 1 and 2 of Article 27 of the UDHR, we are left with the question of whether price is an economic barrier to access, whether access has a basis in human rights obligations, and whether governments have a positive obligation to move where the opportunity presents itself to remove the barrier. To show that there is merit to a positive obligation in progressive realization of human rights, we feel the following arguments are conclusive.

1. The knowledge that is available but not accessible because of economic barriers is essential to development that is in accordance with human rights, that is development that is equitable and self-determined. (the Knowledge for Development argument – K4D)

2. Financial barriers exist that are significant enough to bar access to such knowledge, thereby exacerbating inequality leading to lack of progress on realization of human rights, and even regress. These are significant enough to deprive people of their communication rights and rights to benefit from knowledge. (the Access to Knowledge argument – A2K).

3. Implementation of a policy of open-access does not impose strain on states’ resources beyond their capacity to meet their own citizens’ rights and guarantee their freedoms, and supports the human rights of authors and those who benefit (Progressive Realization and Balances argument).

4. There is growing consensus on the interpretations of our commitments to covenants, conventions and the Declaration of 1948 that the policy is consistent with progressive realization of international human rights and positive obligations.

5. The explanation for a shift is not a political trend, but a rational and reasoned response to the communications revolution, in fact a realization of the normative values of scholarship and science in more favourable conditions than in the past. (Information and Communication Technology for Development argument – ICT4D).

1. K4D.

In human rights terms, international development is a positive obligation of states under its commitments to international assistance and cooperation1 3 4. The model for well-conceived development is shifting from a donor-recipient model to a partnership model . Partnership aims at equitable roles and responsibilities for partners. The new paradigm seeks to affect upstream determinants in the realization of determinants, similar to health promotion and disease prevention as opposed to tertiary care. In this author’s fields of international health and of international development, we refer to a shift from a ‘needs-based approach’ to a ‘human-rights based approach’. In my training as a nurse, we were given the example of the boy who arrives at the hospital with a broken leg. In the downstream approach, we are only concerned with treating the fracture. In the upstream approach, we ask a set of questions in the form of dialectic:

How did the boy break his leg? He was playing in a junkyard.
Why was he playing in a junkyard? There were no safe playgrounds in his neighbourhood. Why were there no safe playgrounds? The municipality was meant to address it but hasn’t.

Why haven’t they followed through? They have to set priorities, and were set elsewhere. Why didn’t the parents mobilize pressure for this priority? They didn’t know they had a right to, or how to go about it.
And so on…..

The upstream approach recognizes that it is not just treating the leg, it is not even about going and fixing the playground situation from above. When we talk about informing this neighbourhood of their rights we are getting closer, and when we talk about both creating a culture in society where people are aware of their rights regardless of income and where governments are accountable to communities regardless of socio-economic status, then we’re talking about communities who are motivated to secure the rights of their children because they know their rights, they know how to get something done, and their representatives respond fairly to them. Today, such a community may prevent a broken leg because they had the safe playground built, and tomorrow there may be a million hospital visits and deaths we never come to know about because the community can act on each issue that faces it. This is even more fundamental than the idea of ‘give a woman a fish and her family will eat for a day, teach her how to fish and her family will eat forever”, and more fundamental than the right to education. It is to say, when a woman or a man in society sees that her family faces problems and she wishes to solve them, it is not in the spirit of brotherhood to stand in her way, or to release pieces of the puzzle only when it suits us.

International assistance should aim as upstream whenever possible. This does not mean that aid is unnecessary. It means that a country is developing when it accesses aid that it needs based on its knowledge of its own resources, its own problems. The donor in fact ought to be the passive one, and it can be so only where the recipient has the capacity for knowledge. As another example, consider a stroke victim. On the one hand, we may provide the person with assistance to meet their basic needs. On the other hand, we can first teach them how to regain their functionality and second provide them with knowledge of how to do things within an altered capacity, third provide them with access to knowledge they can acquire themselves and fourth provide them with knowledge of their right to access assistance on their own terms. In the upstream approach they may access services based on their choices, and even refuse assistance. In doing so, they can protect themselves from abuse from their caregiver, they are not vulnerable when the caregiver is not present, and yet have the right to access care that meets their needs.

Ultimately, at the fountain of the stream we find that power lies with knowledge. Knowledge of rights, access to information and knowledge to solve problems and knowledge of the situation are determinants of development. Where a people can access knowledge and acquire it, they can determine their own development.

From an economic development point of view, the World Bank has identified K4D as a top priority . We may also look at knowledge as the upstream determinant of the right to freely dispose of natural wealth – expressed in Article 2 of the Declaration on the Right to Development, and Article 1, para 2 of the ICESCR. The international economic order today follows a typical pattern where raw material is extracted with low wage labour from developing countries at low prices. Manufacturing requires more skills and knowledge, and with those skills and knowledge, the surplus value increases and the benefits are realized in the country that processes the material. The enrichment of raw materials in innovation, through patents, further increases the surplus on the raw material and labour. Marketing and retail confer even further benefits on the countries that operate this side of the business. As an example, every cell phone and computer uses a processor that is made with a mineral that the Democratic Republic of Congo is extremely rich in. Yet only a small percentage of the sale of a computer in Canada is realized from the sale of the raw materials. In the knowledge economy and the context of inequality in the world, raw natural resources confer few benefits on nation’s that hold, where most of the surplus wealth is realized through enrichment through knowledge. Thus, they it may be claimed that the people of these nations are freely disposing of the wealth, but they have little power without access to the global body of knowledge to realize the benefits of the knowledge economy, or to participate fully in the political economy governing their nations.

The World Bank’s website produces comparative analysis on countries knowledge economies. The figures below represent comparison between Zambia, whose economy is largely based on raw copper exports and Canada, who exports natural resources but is also among the nations realizing the most benefits of knowledge products.

see table in attached pdf.

The pattern addressed by the World Bank and others and hoped to be reversed by the development of knowledge economies is one of the balance of development gains being matched with knowledge development. The general pattern is that LDC’s supply cheap raw resources and low-wage unskilled labour and realize less growth than what is needed to escape poverty, MDC’s have a larger manufacturing base and access to export-processing zones and a mixture of low-wage and skilled labour and industrial technology to realize greater GDP growth, and developed countries drive most of the specualation, innovation, patents, marketing and retail to sustain remarkable GDP levels and moderate relative growth. Since most of the surplus value occurs as we move along the chain, consumer-spending in knowledge-enriched products in the North means better GDP for those countries. The tax base is invested in public knowledge, and higher education institutions have good access to basic science. The efficiency of innovation requires a highly educated population with ease of access to the global knowledge commons, as well as an intellectual property regime for patentable knowledge.7 The tax base also supports public investment in research that knowledge workers need in service to the public good. Thus the wealth that drives our ability to meet economic, social and cultural rights obligations is based on economic interdependence. The nations with greater access to knowledge realize the majority of the benefits, not the least of which being a greater capacity to fulfill positive obligations towards rights and a greater ability of the population to assert rights.

“We are not bystanders who find ourselves confronted with foreign deprivations whose origins are wholly unconnected to ourselves. In fact, there are at least three morally significant connections between us and the global poor. First, their social starting positions and ours have emerged from a single historical process that was pervaded by massive grievous wrongs. ….Second, they and we depend on a single natural resource base, from the benefits of which they are largely, and without compensation, excluded. …. Third, they and we coexist within a single global economic order that has a strong tendency to perpetuate and even to aggravate global economic inequality. Given these connections, our failure to make a serious effort toward poverty reduction may constitute not merely a lack of beneficence, but our active impoverishing, starving, and killing millions of innocent people by economic means.”
- T. Pogge

In addressing our colleague Pogge’s second point, the exclusion of compensation of the benefits of natural resources begins with the history of grievous wrongs, and continues in the context of inequity in the knowledge economy. As far as we place barriers to the development of the knowledge economies of developing countries, we do so at the expense of the rights of those of other nations because we can share knowledge with the knowledge workers of those countries, but we aren’t doing so. The massive surplus benefits of the natural resource base are directed upwards in the development continuum through the process of combining raw material and as of yet public knowledge into patented intellectual property and processed product. Indigenous peoples’ knowledge is patented for profit without benefits accrued to them, often without their awareness. Access to that knowledge is available in vast disproportion to members of societies who benefit from the wealth generated through that process.

The global body of public knowledge is available behind difficult to surpass economic barriers to the majority of knowledge workers in any developing country whose role it is to serve the public good. These are the nurses, doctors, lawyers, civil servants, engineers, teachers and those who educate them etc. When the state carries out its positive obligations towards social and economic rights, knowledge workers are its vehicle. These knowledge workers’ effectiveness is dependent on the ability to combine local and global knowledge.7 In the developed country, in order to eliminate the static inefficiency of charges on access to the public domain, the state subsidizes access to the global knowledge commons knowledge workers through funding university library budgets from its tax base. Thus, it funds the limitation of access, and even in developed countries this can be a barrier. Libraries have faced increase in prices of journals 300% beyond inflation9, and even after libraries formed into coalitions for bargaining power “researchers themselves have become dissatisfied that their libraries can no longer afford to buy back their research output and that of their co-workers, even though this was provided free of cost to the publishers” , and “organizations that fund the research have become concerned that the published results of their funding are largely unread and that scientific progress is retarded through inadequate access to related research conducted globally.” University of Maryland recently cancelled 32 journals from Elsevier when the company raised the average price of each journal by 27% when the university refused to change their policy of choosing by title instead of package. The pressing issue was high-cost per use on low-use journals. Researchers are coming to the conclusion that open access is a logical response to the evolution of scientific publishing. It is somewhat of a cosmic joke to learn that the most expensive and underutilized journal at Maryland cost over $1200 per use was the ‘Annals of Pure and Applied Logic’.

With static inefficiency in research dissemination globally, developing countries are the most marginalized and underdeveloped in the knowledge economy. According to UNESCO, “the research base of a country has a profound effect on its economic development and its ability to address problems in such areas as public health, infectious diseases, agriculture, environmental management, or industrial progress.” Without developing the knowledge economy, a country realizes a tiny fraction of its natural wealth’s potential, and thus can’t invest much in research and development, not to mention have the capacity to train its knowledge workers. It is a vicious circle. Researchers from the developing world comprise a fraction of participation in research, even though they are best positioned to contribute on the key challenges facing the world, resulting in a growing recognition of gaping holes of ‘missing knowledge’. The 1990 Commission on Health Research for Development estimated that less than 10% of the global health research resources were being applied to the health problems of developing countries, which accounted for over 90% of the world’s health problems – an imbalance captured in the term the ‘10/90 gap’15.

If we recall the Declaration on the Right to Development, development and its benefits have occurred inequitably. This declaration speaks of massive and flagrant violations of the human rights of the peoples and individuals affected by situations such as those resulting from colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, all forms of racism and racial discrimination, foreign domination and occupation, aggression and threats against national sovereignty, national unity and territorial integrity and threats of war. In this historical context, the developed countries like Canada have benefited from years of stability and an advantageous starting point built on the ‘Commonwealth’ of the colonial period. During the Cold War, countries like the Congo and Afghanistan suffered inexorably as proxies in the bids of the Soviets and the U.S. to protect the security of themselves and their allies. Along with the proxy relationships, economic opportunism set the stage for the unequal world order supported by unfair trade regimes yet to be reformed in any satisfactory way. The U.N. estimates that “unfair trade rules deny poor countries $700 billion every year. Less than 0.01% of this could save the sight of 30 million people.” To add further injury to injustice, few people in developing countries have access to the knowledge and theory that drives trade policy.

The global knowledge commons is both a beneficiary and a driver of the economic order. If the knowledge commons is equitably accessible this will promote equity in the economic order. The current structure drives greater inequity and development that is determined by largely by the G8 countries. The global body of knowledge is increasingly becoming available on the internet, which provides greater efficiency in the knowledge economy for those that can access it, and leaves those who can’t further behind. Without equity, the Declaration on the Right to Development is empty, and Article II itself can’t be realized.

2. The human right to development also implies the full realization of the right of peoples to self-determination, which includes, subject to the relevant provisions of both International Covenants on Human Rights, the exercise of their inalienable right to full sovereignty over all their natural wealth and resources.

2. A2K
In questions of the provision of services without charge for the sake of equity, the considerations we are held to are whether the fees charged do in fact constitute a barrier to access, and whether the provision of such services are significant in the progressive realization of human rights do not exceed the maximum resources available. The evidence is overwhelming that fees constitute a barrier. The World Health Organization conducted a study in 2003 which found that 56% of research and academic institutions in least developed countries (per-capita GNP < $1000) carried zero subscriptions, and 21% carried an average of 2. In the next income-tier (per-capita GNP < $1000-$3000) countries 34% of institutions carried no subscriptions, and 34% carried an average of 2 to 5. Researchers and academics identified ‘priced literature’ as their most pressing information problem.13 Such issues are the raison d’etre of open access publishers such as Public Library Science, and the reason why the World Health Organization has instituted the Health Internetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI), along with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N.’s Access to Global On-line Research in Agriculture (AGORA) and the On-line Access to Research in the Environment (OARE) of the U.N. Environment Programme. All of these take advantage of the internet to disseminate critical research to the above-mentioned institutions in the poorest countries through agreements with publishers. HINARI, AGORA and OCHA, as well as other charitable civil society and government actions represent small steps forward. The adoption of open-access legislative norms by governments alone translate into meaningful implementation of the obligations of progressive and full realization of human rights based in the rule of law and natural justice.

3. Progressive realization and states’ resources.

The policy recommendations suggested here are not only framed ass human rights issues in the context of development, but as taxpayer rights issues as well. The environment has changed enough that strong arguments are being made that states’ resources are used more efficiently with a move towards open access. These arguments form the basis of proposals for government policy of open access for publicly-funded research. The United States Senate Bill 2695 sponsored by Joe Lieberman (Independent) and John Cornyn (Republican – Texas), to be reintroduced in the 110th Congress is entitled Federal Public Access to Research is supported by the Alliance for Taxpayer Access . Similarily, the European Commission’s 2006 study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publications Market in Europe’s first recommendation is to mandate open access as a condition of public funding. Both proposals are identical to the one proposed here, government-funded research must be publicly and freely available (on the internet) within 6 months.7

The National Insititutes for Health Research in the United States encourages the authors it funds to voluntarily deposit their manuscripts in open e-repositories and maintain open access rights as far as possible with journal publishers. The Canadian Institutes for Health Research in Canada has a policy requiring the researchers it funds to publish open-access, though it is not mandatory if the publisher insists on exclusivity. In all cases, the arguments are made from the point of view of efficiency of public money and taxpayer rights, along with the human rights and public access implications and good policy for science and the agencies purposes. This is significant as it becomes clearer that the obstructions are not the limitation on states’ resources, but the concerns of third-party publishers’ loss of market power. The third-party publishers retain the advantage being supported by current copyright law. However, we have established that the intellectual property regimes exist not as human rights but as ways of achieving economic ends. As stated, taxpayer rights are not human rights per se, but their voice bears implication on any discussion regarding the strain on states’ expenditures of maximal resources to realize human rights. It would be one thing if taxpayer rights’ were being implicated in the balance against open access, as such they would provide an argument that states’ resources would be overstretched by such a move. In fact they fall on the side of open access. What we are left with are market interests of third-parties.

Given the economic benefit on a much wider market, legislation that is economically responsible and congruent with human rights and equitable economic growth cannot continue to accommodate the interests of a few at the expense of the global public good. Particular interests must adapt to the changes in legislation that responsible governments are free to undertake, since their human rights are not at stake and governments and taxpayers are not in the business of propping up markets for the sake of proprietors. The open access move is a move to norms of scientific publishing made possible by the technical evolution of publishing. It removes a market-based constraint on researchers’ rights to make their work available, and reinforces the moral interests of the author while not affecting their material interests.

In the balance of the CESCR’s interpretation of states’ obligations regarding human rights and Article 15, states are not obliged to uphold the intellectual property regimes on the basis of third-parties who have acquired property from authors, only the human rights of authors. The intellectual property regimes are acceptable when they don’t infringe on those and other human rights such as communication rights and the right to benefit from scientific advancement, and can only be justified in the context of efficient use of states’ resources for economic and preservation reasons. In the current context, they can no longer be.

4. The growing consensus.

The EU study’s recommendation is supported by a 24,000 strong petition from the global research community . The U.S. Senate Bill draws on the same petition and has received 2354 signatures since March 13th , 2007 (less than a month from time of writing), as well as receiving 125 letters of support from higher education leaders. The Budapest Open Access Initiative, which also provides the potential standards for open-access is supported by a petition of 4789 individuals and 380 organizations. The Berlin Declaration is supported by the German research community and 227 stakeholder organizations worldwide, a declaration of the establishment of the identical open-access norms. The Bethesda Declaration was released by the American biomedical research community in April 11, 2003 in support of the same open access norms as Budapest and Berlin, underscoring their desire to move forward with the ‘widely held goal’ of open access to their research . The Bethesda, Berlin and Budapest Declarations present the internationally-recognized standards for open access principles in all types of publishing, such as Open Access Law Canada and the over 35 law journals worldwide who operate under ‘open-access law journal principles’, the first of which deals with the economic barrier to knowledge presented by traditional publishing (“WE, THE EDITORS OF OUR LAW JOURNAL, BELIEVE that legal scholarship should be available to the widest possible audience, regardless of wealth). Open access advocate Peter Suber lists on his website 14 journals who resigned from their publishers to move to open-access principles and 15 policy statements from learned societies and professional associations on open access.

The NIH in the U.S. and CIHR in Canada are leading the way on the government side as mentioned and also in Canada the International Development Research Agency operates under open-access. Civil society groups have drafted a comprehensive Access to Knowledge Draft Treaty proposal for international human rights law, covering each article of current conventions relevant to these policy recommendations. In 2004, as the World Intellectual Property Organization adopted the proposals to include a development agenda, hundreds of scientist and civil society groups signed the Geneva Declaration on the future of WIPO, which addressed a variety of IP issues including advocacy for open-access on the development agenda. The Wellcome trust is a United Kingdom private foundation for human and animal health research which requires the authors it funds to publish in open-access compliant ways. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, issued a Final Communique on Jan. 30, 2004, supporting open access to publicly funded research data, signed by the 34 Ministers OECD Scientific and Technological Committee, including Canada .
Canadian universities are already proceeding with D-space technology for open access archiving. Archiving in public institutions is also seen as an advantage from a preservation point of view, in the event of private journal collapse or mismanagement of the archive. Finally, the Government of Canada’s Task Force National Consultation on Access to Scientific Research Data released its final report in 2005 urging

‘immediate and pressing consideration of our Report, and recommend the earliest possible implementation, as a national priority, of the step-by-step approach proposed that will lead to early and effective implementation of a national plan for open access to publicly funded scientific research data.’

Canada Research Chair in Internet Law and E-Commerce Michael Geist is prolific in his advocacy for more sensible balances for users, authors and third-parties as well as increasing availability of digital knowledge. He cites the recent milestone of the E.U. petition and states that Canadian funding agencies (apart from CIHR and IDRC) “are increasingly at risk of falling behind their counterparts around the world by dragging their heels on open access.”

Canada Research Chair in Health Equity Dr. Peter Tugwell, one of Canada’s most prolific authors of research, and Amir Attaran who is Canada Research Chair in Law, Development Policy and Population Health are both advocates of the Public Library of Science and its role in open and equitable access to research.

That such policy is well-supported by research and argument is not surprising given the nature of the policy and its support from researchers and scholars. Access to knowledge and internet communication are responsible for rapid consensus-building in the community of authors, the very same protected by Article 27 (2), and consensus amongst users who are the same protected under Article 27 (1). The weight of intellect leaning on open-access policy is almost unfair to the current legislation it aims to change!

5. ICT4D.

The technological determinant for the possibility laid at the feet of the governments of knowledge-rich countries is the internet. Communication media have long been recognized for their impact on social structures, and Canadians can be proud of the pioneering work of Harold Innis and Marshall Macluhan in revolutionizing our understanding of this. Innis’ critical analysis conveyed the pattern of communication media in establishing knowledge monopolies . The recent and voluminous work of Manuel Castells suggests that we face a crossroads with the new ICT’s, where the potential of increasing monopoly coexists with the potential of the network society in decentralizing and democratizing knowledge, and at the crossroads are our choices. Much of the focus of ICT development is on infrastructure and there is an obvious connection with technical development for reliable internet access in the developing world, especially for hospitals, universities, schools, community centres, businesses and all levels of government. The World Bank has recognized as such in its recent announcement of $164.5 billion dollars for ICT development to develop the last remaining regions in Africa still outside the global broadband infrastructure. The WB states,

“Businesses are unable to compete in the global economy, university students suffer because they cannot access the Internet, and government agencies cannot communicate effectively with each other and their citizens because they are not connected”.33

We believe that open access to research makes every dollar spent on ICT infrastucture more worthwhile because it means that among the commercial, functional and user-generated content along with all the low-quality noise, there will be access to high-quality reliable information and knowledge that knowledge workers need.

Keith Bezanson of the Institute for Development Studies Canada emphasizes this in an IDRC publication.

Moreover, it is not access to the technologies or to information itself that makes the difference in terms of development. What does make the difference is the capacity for and the process of absorption and ongoing learning.

Access to research invites people into the cultural life of the research communities of their discipline, and ought to be accompanied by research networking and collaboration. Research requires access to research. The second policy recommendation takes place in the context of university partnerships where research and student exchange and collaboration can take place, along with institutional capacity-building. Mandates already exist for such partnerships and capacity-building, but the pieces need to come together in a way that shares power. This can only be done where there is access to research. Deprivation of access to research to a student or researcher is akin to deprivation of Article 27’s mention of the right to participation in the cultural life of the community. Scientists will argue strenuously that their discipline takes on a cultural and community life that is global and meant to be open to those with desire to take part. The International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications focuses its work dually on access to research and on internet access, providing tremendous resources for developing countries to manage technology and inform them of open access research.

A2k and ICT4D go hand in hand, and the equivalent to the A2K draft treating is the Association for Progressive Communications proposed Internet Rights Charter, which again outlines each existing right with relevance the new technology. Rights are understood to evolve over time, as with social progress in the recognition of same-sex marriage or gender reassignment rights , and logically they also evolve with the implications of new and revolutionary ICT’s on rights associated with communication.

As such, the open access to research movement is not an ideological trend, but a rational, informed, analytical and evidenced response to the nature of the technological change with respect to past mistakes and limitations and future possibilities.

The role of the internet in the policy argument is explicit in every declaration and policy draft, and clear in the soon to be tabled U.S. Senate Bill.

2) the Federal Government funds basic and applied research with the expectation that new ideas and discoveries that result from the research, if shared and effectively disseminated, will advance science and improve the lives and welfare of people of the United States and around the world; and
3) the Internet makes it possible for this information to be promptly available to every scientist, physician, educator and citizen at home, in school, or in a library.19

Conclusion

It must be said that the global body of knowledge on the internet is a vast resource that unlike many resources, cannot be depleted. In fact, the more it is used the better and vaster it becomes. What has been scarce have been the resources needed for dissemination. The internet changes all of this. While subscription costs have continued to rise with the market power of publishers and increase in supply of research, technology costs fall over time. Thus, when the government funds research and mandates open access, it builds on the technology infrastructure for open access, it ensures archives are public and therefore retains its responsibility in the preservation of knowledge. Because it is mandating open access, it faces a pressure to reduce its costs, so it rewards innovation in the technology and methods of knowledge dissemination. Even in the absence of legislation, the pressure towards open access has resulted in innovation. In the absence of legislation, however, the legal status quo leaves the process unsatisfying and incomplete as publishers continue to demand from authors exclusivity under the protection of current law in the environment of publish or perish. Some publicly-funded knowledge will be accessible and other knowledge will not be. States will continue to throw good public money after a public bad, including expensive court challenges.

The progressive realization of human rights logically takes into account changes in the environment. The assertion here is that the communications revolution has radically altered the balance whereby not only would a policy of free access to the world’s research be possible within the maximum resources available to states, evidence suggests that it would reduce the burden on states’ resources.7 Thus, if we can argue that having access to research is pivotal to development and the realization of economic, social and cultural rights, and to the realization of civil and political rights, in the context of the communications revolution where we find that open access policy presents a net savings on states resources, and we find no contradiction from Article 27 (2) – we have every reason to move forward with open access policy. In the doctrine of progressive realization, we are in neglect of our obligations if we do not. This is especially true with how rapidly the communications revolution impacts development. Where one community of researchers is afforded of the databases and journals needed in their discipline, and where another goes without, the disparities grow between the two, and not only do they grow between those who do research, they grow between the nations in which those research communities exists.

Today’s world is one marked by disparity and extremes such as a life expectancy of 36 for a girl born in Sierra Leone compared to 85 for a girl born in Japan , to the incomprehensible disparity in wages for the average person belonging to 80% of the world and that of the top 1%. To speak of a continuum of those who can realize rights to life, liberty, health and economic, social and cultural rights, to speak of degree one needs a very long yardstick. To say that we are first, second and third worlds masks the expanse between us and when we say we are worlds apart, we do not seem to share the same universe. Yet, over the last half-century, we’ve made universal commitments to human rights and in establishing the United Nations set forth our intentions to live in peace in the world and in the spirit of brotherhood. We’ve recognized by now many failures and a great distance between where we are now and the ideal we’ve committed to, but we’ve also recognized that the incredible effort it takes to manage the tensions of sovereign states responsibilities towards their own citizens with international responsibilities. This is the gritty realism juxtaposed against those ideals. At the same time, moving forward means meeting that tension and working that balance at every opportunity, in the recognition that those commitments in the long-run offer the only true security for our own citizens. Seriousness in these commitments is required, for we face grave dishonour when injustice prevails so frequently in the face of our covenants, declarations, conventions, charters and of our hopes as human beings one and all.

The world does not give us easy challenges. Right now, however, in comparison the vast and complex initiatives we have undertaken we can do something significant that is not difficult for us and benefits our citizens as it does those of the world. There exists a self-perpetuating divide where one side are those who can largely determine their fate and exercise the rights and the dignity of the person spoken of in our historic documents, and on the other those large measure of people who are vulnerable, deprived and with little power to change this situation, and the we can include a great many who are in the margin. The actions we can take, which are simple and upon which consensus is building, would begin to move the margin so more and more would be included amonst those who can realize their rights. More and more as well would have the power to be engaged in the gritty work of solving those problems and of fighting those battles. In the end, we may be able to speak of a spirit of brotherhood that is tangible and not only ideal.

The policy recommendations here are powerful, simple and come from the heart of the spirit of brotherhood. The key outcome of recommendations is openly accessible knowledge for all people and university partnerships that are equal.

The profound consistency in the 1st policy recommendation and each draft and declaration by a community known for its debate and scepticism demonstrates great promise for this initiative. The 2nd speaks with heart about our right to share as we wish to for the good of our brothers and sisters who are our counterparts.

Knowledge is power, if we keep it locked in the developed world under economic barriers we are demonstrating that we wish to retain power over the world. If we share it with others, we are building power with them to solve the problems of the world. We should be realistic as we face the massive problems we are all aware of and share globally. We should not think we can or should solve them alone, for in that path when we fail, we alone will be responsible as those who knew. If we take the other path and we fail, we share that responsibility and with the dignity that we honoured our commitments to one another, but we do not think that will happen.

--- *** Recommendation 2: Concerning this recommendation, we find that libraries may already be justified in proceeding with authorized use to library partners in countries with per capita GNP of <$3000. This is based on precedent in Supreme Court decisions where infringement of publishers’ copyright where the publisher fails to show that sharing copyrighted materials detracts from their business revenue is an important factor in fair use. As the World Health Organization 2003 study demonstrated, the libraries in question held from zero to five subscriptions and those that are now using HINARI, OARE and AGORA are doing so on the basis of having no budget for subscriptions. It would be unreasonable to presume that by sharing Canadian universities’ subscriptions, our uncompensated voluntary arrangement creates any meaningful competition for the purchase of the journals. Libraries may be able rely upon first-sale doctrine and fair dealing. Clear policy is needed to allow greater flexibility for educational institutions as otherwise it puts librarians in the position of possible legal challenges, even if they are likely to win at the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court of Canada. CCH Canadian Ltd. v. Law Society of Upper Canada, 2004 SCC 13 (CanLII) From Judgement for the Defendant…….
59 Finally, the effect of the dealing on the work is another factor warranting consideration when courts are determining whether a dealing is fair. If the reproduced work is likely to compete with the market of the original work, this may suggest that the dealing is not fair. Although the effect of the dealing on the market of the copyright owner is an important factor, it is neither the only factor nor the most important factor that a court must consider in deciding if the dealing is fair. See, for example, Pro Sieben Media AG v. Carlton UK Television Ltd., [1999] F.S.R. 610 (C.A.), per Robert Walker L.J.

Wilkinson, Margaret Ann. 2005. Chapter 12, Filtering the Flow from the Fountains of Knowledge. In Geist, Michael. 2005. In the Public Interest. Irwin Law.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 1948. United Nations Department of Public Information. http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/eng.htm

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 1976. Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights. http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_ccpr.htm

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. 1976. Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights. http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_cescr.htm

Declaration on the Right to Development. 1986. Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights. http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/74.htm

see Article 2. para. 1 of International Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights. 1976. http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_cescr.htm/

see Article 2 para. 1 General Comment 3 (on the nature of state party obligations). Committee on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights. 1990 (fifth session). in International Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights. 1976.
http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(symbol)/CESCR+General+comment+3.En?OpenDocument

Willinsky, John. 2005. The Access Principle. The Case for Open Access to Research and Knowledge. MIT Press.

Stiglitz, Joseph E. Knowledge as a Global Public Good. 1999. in Kaul, Grunberg and Stern. Global Public Goods. Oxford Scholarship Online.

European Commission. 2006. Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publications Market in Europe. Science and Society. http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/pdf/scientific-publication-...

Committee on Issues in the Transborder Flow of Scientific Data. National Research Council. 2003. In: Bits of Power. National Academy of Sciences. http://www.nap.edu

Horton et. al. Chapter 5. 2003. Towards Partnership in Organizational Capacity Development. In Evaluating Capacity Development. International Development Research Centre, Canada. http://www.idrc.ca/media/ev-43625-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

The World Bank. 2007. Knowledge for Development. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/WBI/WBIPROGRAMS/KFDLP/0,,menuPK...
Pogge T. (2001). Priorities of global justice. Metaphilosophy 32: 6-24

Kirshop, B. and Chan, L. 2005. Transforming Access to Research Literature in Developing Countries. Serials Review 31:246–255. Elsevier. https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/4416/1/Kirsop_Chan_Ser...

Destler, William W (Senior VP Academic Affairs and Provost, University of Maryland). 2004. Letter to UM Faculty from Provost Destler Regarding 2004 Elsevier Subscription. University Libraries, University of Maryland. http://www.lib.umd.edu/CLMD/Faculty/provost.html
UNESCO, Draft medium-term plan (1984–1989). Second part, VII (pp. 135–143), Information systems and access to knowledge. General conference fourth extraordinary session, Paris (1982), Paris, UNESCO (http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0005/
000507/050794eo.pdf); OECD, National innovation systems (1997) Paris, OECD. In Kirshop and Chan. 2005 (ref. 9).

Committee on Health Research for Development. 2006. The 10/90 gap: Now. Global Health Research Forum http://www.globalforumhealth.org/Site/003__The%2010%2090%20gap/001__Now.php

United Nations Millenium Campaign. 2007. Goal 8: The Global Partnership for Development. Did you know? http://www.millenniumcampaign.org/site/pp.asp?c=grKVL2NLE&b=186389

see HINARI website. http://www.who.int/hinari/en
Cornyn J, Lieberman J. 2006. Senate Bill 2695 - Federal Research Public Access Act (Introduced in 2nd Session of 109th Congress.) United States Senate. Retrieved March 27th, 2007 from http://cornyn.senate.gov/doc_archive/05-02-2006_COE06461_xml.pdf

National Institutes of Health, United States. 2005. Policy on Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH-Funded Research http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-05-022.html

Canadian Institutes of Health Research. 2006. Draft Policy on Access to CIHR-funded Research Outputs. Government of Canada. http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/32326.html

see http://www.ec-petition.eu
Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and the Humanities. 2003. Max Planck Gesellschaft. http://oa.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html

Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing. 2003. available at http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/bethesda.htm

see Open Access Law Canada http://www.openaccesslawcanada.ca/list.php and http://www.openaccesslawcanada.ca/index.php
A2k draft treaty. CP-tech, available at http://www.cptech.org/a2k

Geneva Declaration on the Future of WIPO. 2004. Available at http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/genevadeclaration.html

Wellcome Trust. 2007. Position statement in support of open-access publishing. http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTD002766.html

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. 2004. Science, Technology and Innovation for the 21st Century. Meeting of the OECD Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy at Ministerial Level, 29-30 January 2004 - Final Communique. OECD. http://www.oecd.org/document/0,2340,en_2649_34487_25998799_1_1_1_1,00.html

Canada’s Task Force for the National Consultation on Access to Research Data. 2005. National Consultation on Access to Research Data Final Report. Her Majesty in the Right of Canada. http://ncasrd-cnadrs.scitech.gc.ca/NCASRDReport_e.pdf

Geist, Michael. 2007. Open Access Reshaping the Rules of Research. Published on BBC on-line, available at http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1762/159/

Tugwell, Peter. 2006. Health Equity. Lecture in the Hillman Seminars in International Health, University of Ottawa.

Library and Archives Canada. 2007. Old Messengers, New Media. Library and Archives Canada. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/innis-mcluhan/002033-1000-e.html

Castells, Manuel. 2006. Chapter 1 The Network Society: From Knowledge to Policy, in
The Network Society: From Knowledge to Policy; Manuel Castells and Gustavo, Cardoso eds. Centre for Transatlantic Relations.

Reuters. April 3rd, 2007. World Bank Gives Africa $164.5 million for Internet Connections. Yahoo News/Reuters. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/070403/tecnology/net_kenya_internet_dc_1

Bezanson, Keith. 2007. Some Outline Thoughts for the Harvard Meeting on ICTs and Poverty Reduction. Institute for Development Studies/IDRC. http://www.idrc.ca/uploads/user-S/10787613581ICTs_and_Poverty_Reduction_...

see INASP website, www.inaps.info

see APC Internet Rights Charter at http://www.apc.org/english/rights/charter.shtml

Harrington, Joanna. 2007. International Human Rights Law Seminar (personal communication). Master’s in Globalization and International Development Program, University of Ottawa.
World Health Organization Report (WHO) (2003). The World Health Report 2003. http://www.who.int/whr/2003/overview/en/

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