About the Office

Mandate

The mandate of the WIPO Coordination Office in New York is to represent WIPO at the United Nations (UN) in New York and to raise awareness among the UN member States, the UN Secretariat and civil society about the activities of WIPO and the international intellectual property system.

In turn, the Office has the responsibility to inform WIPO Headquarters about developments in the UN where they relate to intellectual property matters, and to issues that touch upon WIPO's mandate.

Objectives

The Office in New York:

• ensures WIPO's effective engagement in UN processes and negotiations taking place in New York;
• optimizes WIPO's contributions to UN processes to support well informed debates in relation to IP and global challenges; and,
• increases WIPO's visibility and engagement with the UN.

Terms of reference

The Office in New York attends all major UN meetings in New York with an intellectual property dimension, in particular those related to national and international development. These meetings include the General Assembly sessions, Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and the following main committees of the UN General Assembly:

• Economic and financial matters (Second Committee)
• Social, humanitarian and cultural matters (Third Committee)
• Special political and decolonization matters (Fourth Committee)
• Administrative and budgetary matters (Fifth Committee)
• Legal matters (Sixth Committee)

The Office participates in UN inter-agency meetings and reports regularly to WIPO Headquarters on these meetings.

The Office organizes briefings and holds workshops and other outreach activities on an array of intellectual property issues for members of the diplomatic community, UN staff and civil society organizations.