that the concept of a search committee be applied to all elective posts in WHO. The Board took no action on the proposal.

Pan American Health Organization

The 35th meeting of the Directing Council of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), which also serves as the regional committee of WHO for the Americas, met in Washington from September 23–27. The meeting was dominated by discussion of the proposed PAHO budget for 1992-1993. For the first time in many years, the U.S. Delegation voted against the PAHO appropriation resolution.

Several weeks before the meeting of the 38-member Council, U.S. officials met with PAHO to discuss ways of limiting the increase in the budget. The United States proposed creation of a special fund to be used to offset possible exchange rate losses. Creation of the fund-for example, at the level of $5.9 million— would have lowered nominal growth in the PAHO effective working budget from 17.3 percent over the 1990–1991 budget to 12.75 percent, while still permitting PAHO to implement the program at the level it proposed.

PAHO's Secretariat presented the proposed special fund to the Council, and the U.S. Delegation praised the effort, saying PAHO had undertaken many laudable efforts to hold down the budget, the new resolution made good management sense, and the new special fund should be considered a resource outside the regular budget. However, PAHO Director Carlyle Guerra de Macedo (Brazil) told the Council the budget had been developed on the basis of a 17.3 percent nominal increase, that this had not been changed, and that the $5.9 million special fund for potential exchange rate losses had to be considered part of the budget. In the course of a 3-hour public discussion, the U.S. Delegation said this was an unacceptable interpretation, that the United States could not vote in support of a budget with nominal growth of 17.3 percent, which was possibly the highest growth rate of any agency in the UN system in 1991. The budget was then adopted by a vote of 24 to 1 (U.S.), with 4 abstentions.

In a later review of the Council meeting by the nine-member PAHO Executive Committee, the U.S. Delegation expressed surprise that for the first time in memory a biennial budget had been adopted without Council review of the contents. Although the Council had debated the financing provisions of the budget at length, it had never opened the 460-page budget book for the customary review of how the money would be spent, program by program, and country by country. Dr. Macedo said this had been inadvertent and would not happen again.

The budget adopted by the Council for 1992-1993 had an "effective working budget" of $146,603,000 and a "total program budget" of $152,576,000. The U.S. assessment, which amounted to 60.96 percent of the budget in 1992, and 60.24 percent in 1993, was set (after adjustments for the tax equalization fund) at $44,378,032 for 1992 and $43,885,182 for 1993.

The Director of the WHO GPA program presented the Council with a sobering report on AIDS, stressing that the global pandemic was only in its initial stages and urging governments not to be complacent. The Council also debated and adopted resolutions on cholera, polio eradication, drinking water and sanitation, maternal and child health, and women's health and development.

PAHO presented the Council with a report on efforts taken to locate a site for construction of a new PAHO headquarters building. Although progress toward a new building had been authorized in 1990, a number of delegations raised concerns about the proposal. The PAHO Chief of Administration said PAHO was leasing too much space in downtown Washington at too great an expense, and thus was looking at suburban locations, especially in Bethesda, Maryland. He said a new structure was needed containing a major meeting hall with interpretation facilities and that the current building probably would be sold or leased to the U.S. Government for the use of the Department of State.

International Agency for Research on Cancer

Dr. Lorenzo Tomatis (Italy) was reelected Director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) at the meeting of the 16-member IARC Governing Council, held at its headquarters in Lyon, France, on May 2-3. Dr. Tomatis, finishing a second 5-year term, was elected to serve 2 additional years.

The Council then established a search committee to begin work immediately to encourage candidates to apply to replace Dr. Tomatis in 1993 and later to develop qualitative information about the candidates that would go beyond what is volunteered in the traditional curriculum vitae. Almost every delegation voiced strong support for the establishment of the committee. WHO and IARC staff members present expressed reservations about the concept, but the Council unanimously approved the proposal. The Council also authorized a working group to continue efforts to rethink the IARC role, its program priorities and its budget structure.

The Council adopted an IARC budget of $32,487,000 for 1992-1993, following extensive revisions and negotiations. The

budget for 1992 was $15,698,000, financed by $1.5 million from the Governing Council Special Fund and $14,198,000 in assessments on member states. The portion for 1993 was $16,789,000, financed by $500,000 from the Special Fund and $16,289,000 in assessments. The nominal increase of the biennial budget over that of 1990-1991 was 24.34 percent. Of this amount, 5.35 percent constituted real growth, acceptable to Council members because it was attributable to the initial contributions of two new members, Denmark and Switzerland. The nominal increase also included a 14.41 percent cost increase and a 4.58 percent for exchange rate fluctuation. The U.S. share of the assessment is 8.99 percent. The assessment set for 1992 was $1,276,454, and for 1993 $1,464,443.

Throughout the discussion, the U.S. Delegation urged further economies in the budget. As a result of U.S. interventions, the nominal increase was cut from the 33.46 percent originally proposed to 24.34 percent. Program growth was cut in half, from the 10.7 percent proposed to 5.35. The amount attributable to exchange rate losses was cut from the 8.35 percent proposed to 4.58. The increase in the overall assessments was cut from the original proposal of 28.26 percent to 18.97 percent, and the increase in the U.S. assessment was cut from 17.69 percent to 4.68.

Nevertheless, the U.S. Delegation said the combined increases for costs and exchange rate losses were still too high and that it could not accept a combined increase for these factors higher than what was being proposed for the same budgetary period by WHO. That increase was then expected to be about 14 percent, while the IARC proposal for these factors amounted to an increase of 18.99 percent. IARC staff said the U.S. comparison was unfair, because it used the global WHO increase figure rather than the individual figures for increases at WHO's offices in Geneva and Copenhagen, expected to be 24 and 28 percent, respectively. Other Council members said the U.S. proposal had the effect of eliminating program growth the Council had agreed was acceptable because of the addition of two new members. In the end, the vote to approve the budget was 13 to 2 (U.S., U.S.S.R.), with 1 (Japan) abstention.

The Council also approved an increase in the exchange rate facility, designed to protect the program against currency losses. The original proposal was for an increase in the biennial facility from $2 million in the 1990-1991 biennium to $4 million in 19921993. The U.S. Delegation opposed the change, pointing out that the United States planned to oppose a 40 percent increase in the

exchange rate facility at the World Health Assembly the following week, and, under the circumstances, could not support a 100 percent increase at IARC. The Secretariat, after extended discussion, said it could live with an increase of only $1 million, but the U.S. Delegation opposed that as well. The vote to approve the facility was 13 to 3 (U.S., U.S.S.R., Switzerland).

World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO)

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) was established by a convention signed at Stockholm in 1967, which entered into force in 1970. The United States is a party to the convention, which has 127 member states. WIPO is the principal international organization responsible for promoting the protection of intellectual property, which comprises two elements: copyrights (mainly literary and artistic works) and industrial property (mainly patents on inventions, trademarks and industrial design). WIPO is also responsible for administration of 15 intergovernmental "Unions," each established by multilateral treaty. The two principal treaties are the Paris Convention of 1883 forming the International Union for the Protection of Industrial Property (103 members) and the Berne Convention of 1886 forming the International Union for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (90 members). The United States has been a party to the Paris Convention since 1887; it joined the Berne Convention in 1989.

The separate International Bureaus (which served as secretariats) for the Paris and Berne Conventions were united in 1893 under the name of the United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property (BIRPI). Although BIRPI still has a legal existence for those states which are members of either one of the Unions but not WIPO, in practice it has been supplanted by the International Bureau, the WIPO Secretariat. WIPO became a specialized agency of the United Nations in 1974.

The International Bureau operates through a General Assembly and a Conference, both which meet in ordinary session biennially, at the same time. The principal administrative organs of the Paris and Berne Unions are the assemblies of each union, consisting of all the member states. The Paris and Berne Unions elect executive committees, and the joint membership of these two committees constitutes WIPO's Coordination Committee. All three committees meet annually and the WIPO Coordination Committee is entrusted with such tasks as implementation of

WIPO's biennial program and budget. As a member of the Paris Union Executive Committee, the United States continued as a member of the WIPO Coordination Committee. It also continued in 1991 as a member of the following WIPO organizations: the Assemblies of the Nice Union, Patent Cooperation Treaty Union, International Patent Classification Union and Budapest Union. In 1991 it belonged to the Budget Committee, Permanent Committee for Development Cooperation Related to Copyrights and Neighboring Rights, Permanent Committee on Industrial Property Information and Permanent Committee for Development Cooperation Related to Industrial Property. All of these bodies met in September at their biennial meetings of the WIPO Governing Bodies and adopted the program and budget of WIPO for 1992-1993.

One of the two basic objectives of WIPO is to promote the protection of intellectual property on a worldwide basis. To that end, WIPO encourages the conclusion of new international treaties and the harmonization of national laws; gives legal-technical assistance to developing countries; assembles and disseminates information on intellectual property; maintains international registration services in the fields of trademarks, industrial designs, and appellations of origin; and performs the administrative tasks for an international patent filing arrange

ment.

The second basic objective of WIPO is to ensure administrative cooperation among the unions. Centralizing the administration of the various unions in the International Bureau helps ensure economy both for the member states and for the private sector concerned with intellectual property.

Member unions contribute to six of the WIPO unions, known as the "Program Unions." WIPO's 1992-1993 biennial gross assessed budget for the Program Unions is 42,259,000 Swiss francs. The United States pays approximately 5.49 percent of the total assessed contributions.

Assistance To Developing Countries

WIPO activities in development cooperation regarding developing countries continued in 1991 in two committees composed of developed and developing countries, the WIPO Permanent Committee for Development Cooperation Related to Copyrights and Neighboring Rights and the WIPO Permanent Committee for the Development Cooperation Related to Industrial Property. The United States participates in both of these committees and supports most of their activities.