[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 32 (Monday, February 29, 2016)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E245]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    ESTABLISHING ACCOUNTABILITY AT THE WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY 
 ORGANIZATION: ILLICIT TECHNOLOGY TRANSFERS, WHISTLEBLOWING, AND REFORM

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, February 29, 2016

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, a hearing I held earlier this 
week put a spotlight on an organization that is a critical component of 
a global system of intellectual property and patent protection, the 
World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO. It is an 
organization that, unfortunately, appears to have lost its way under 
its current Director General, Francis Gurry, and is in need of major 
reform.
   We heard from whistleblowers who related how they uncovered illicit 
transfers of technology to rogue nations such as North Korea and Iran, 
and how WIPO under Director General Gurry, unbeknownst to member 
States, cut deals with China and Russia to open offices in those 
countries, potentially putting our intellectual property at risk.
   The hearing was about national security as much as the importance of 
sound governance and oversight. China, for example, has a notoriously 
bad record on protecting intellectual property rights--WIPO ought to be 
part of the solution.
   You may know that I serve as Chairman of the Congressional-Executive 
Commission on China; Senator Marco Rubio is co-chair.
   Ominously, the Commission's latest annual report released last 
October concluded that human rights violations had significantly 
worsened and were broader in scope than at any other time since the 
Commission was established in 2002.
   Last week I travelled to China on a mission to promote human rights, 
the rule of law and democracy, which of course includes intellectual 
property rights.
   In China I not only met and argued with government leaders, but I 
had the privilege of writing and delivering a keynote address to 
students and faculty at New York University-Shanghai.
   Hopes in the 90's that China would eventually and inevitably 
matriculate from a dictatorship to democracy haven't even come close to 
materializing.
   According to the Commission's report, U.S. companies faced 
significant difficulties related to intellectual property rights in 
China. And China is not the only place where these problems persist.
   Two of our witnesses, Jim Pooley and Miranda Brown, recounted what 
they saw at WIPO, and what happened when they sought to bring to light 
what they saw. It is not a pretty story.
   It is the personal aspect of governance and oversight that I want to 
emphasize, because at its heart the story we heard is a human drama, 
about brave individuals who at great personal cost to themselves and 
their comfort saw wrongdoing and decided to do something about it.
   The hearing was timely as well as topical, as there has been an 
internal investigation of WIPO by the UN's Office of Internal Oversight 
Services into the allegations of wrongdoing. The results of this 
investigation are currently before the chairman of WIPO's General 
Assembly--this is a General Assembly of member states, including the 
United States, based in Geneva.
   It is incumbent upon the General Assembly chairman--Gabriel Duque of 
Colombia--that he act upon this report, share it with the member 
states, and make it publically available. We also call upon our State 
Department to follow up on this, and to be persistent in pushing for 
reform, transparency and accountability of WIPO.
   This week's hearing will have reverberations beyond WIPO, for there 
appears to be a culture of corruption at many international 
organizations, not only WIPO.
   We hear revelations, for example, about FIFA and world soccer, and 
how the serpent of corruption wheedles its way even into the world of 
sport, undermining the nobility of athletic competition.
   We hear of the sexual exploitation of minors occurring in UN 
peacekeeping missions--I chaired three hearings on that and traveled to 
DR Congo to investigate--transforming ostensible emissaries of mercy 
into envoys of exploitation, and supposed places of refuge maw pits of 
misery.
   The hearing I held this week is the first in what we hope to be a 
series of hearings this Congress holds to focus on the need for reform 
at the United Nations and its institutions, with our next in the series 
being on UN Peacekeepers and the issue of sexual exploitation and 
abuse.
   We believe by shining a light, we can help victims and help end 
corruption, bringing healing and true reform.
   Organizations such as WIPO are too important to be abandoned. It is 
essential that we conduct vigorous oversight and demand accountability 
to help refocus this organization on fulfilling its vital mission.
   Finally, I would like to thank my co-chairs from the co-sponsoring 
subcommittees, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Matt Salmon, and our various 
ranking members, for joining me at the hearing earlier this week. Rep. 
Ros-Lehtinen in particular has been dogged in pursuing this issue over 
many years now, and deserves praise for first addressing the issue of 
corruption at WIPO.

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