Nothing like an International Peace Organization - Technology for Tyrants

Interpol was very efficient in finding people for the Nazis during WWII.

Technology for Tyrants | The Weekly Standard

Courtesy of the U.N.

Claudia Rosett

December 30 - January 6, 2014, Vol. 19, No. 16

It's well over a year since the United Nations intellectual property agency got caught undermining the U.N.’s own sanctions—shipping U.S.-origin computers and related high-tech equipment to North Korea and Iran. In classic U.N. fashion, the World Intellectual Property Organization, known as WIPO, stiffed congressional inquiries and arranged its own narrow and “independent” investigation of itself. Thanks to U.N. privileges and immunities, WIPO was ultimately judged by the U.N. to have stayed within the letter, if not the spirit, of U.N. sanctions. WIPO’s director general, Francis Gurry, maintained that WIPO had done nothing wrong, but decreed that to dispel any lingering doubt, WIPO would stop sending high-tech hardware to any of its 186 member states.

That has not, however, marked the end of WIPO’s cozy ties to Iran and North Korea. Both these rogue states have learned to exploit this U.N. agency in ways that may not break U.N. rules, but do suggest the organization needs far better management. Based in Geneva, WIPO operates largely off the radar of the U.S. press, but it handles sensitive information and serves an important role as the global clearinghouse for international patent applications and other forms of intellectual property rights.

Gurry, an Australian, is now running for reelection as WIPO director general against three rival candidates—from Panama, Estonia, and Nigeria—with the vote due next spring. There are worries in Congress that his reelection would be a disaster. In September, five lawmakers wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry, noting that Gurry had refused to allow WIPO staffers to testify in a bipartisan investigation into the computer shipments to North Korea and Iran, an “activity that would have put any U.S. citizen behind bars.” They accused Gurry of “erratic and secretive behavior and colossal lack of judgment.” In November, 12 lawmakers sent another letter to Kerry, alleging that “the situation at WIPO has substantially deteriorated.”

That may be a generous assessment, given that WIPO’s problems extend to areas Congress may not even be tracking.

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