The International Centre for Trade & Sustainable Development (ICTSD) and the Quaker UN Office (QUNO) facilitated a dialogue between IP experts and developing country negotiators. The dialogue provided an opportunity for participants at the WTO-WIPO Colloquium for Teachers of Intellectual Property to meet informally with the Geneva-based community working on intellectual property issues.

Each year, the WTO and WIPO provide a two-week in-depth Colloquium for around 20 selected experts teaching in the field of intellectual property, predominantly from universities in developing countries. The experts are given an intensive programme in the WTO and WIPO on current issues and the state of negotiations, but the informal dialogue hosted by ICTSD and QUNO is their key opportunity to meet with national counterparts and discuss how negotiations are shaped in Geneva and beyond.

The purpose of the dialogue is so that academic stakeholders, who will influence IP policymakers to come, can discuss informally the national positions being adopted by countries in the TRIPS Council and WIPO with those involved in negotiations on intellectual property in Geneva. It aims to broker a different kind of information about the political economy of IP at the international level.