Public Knowledge co-founder David Bollier has a must-read piece on the current machinations at WIPO and the "irony -- if not hypocrisy -- that there is growing debate within the United States and Europe about the actual value of strict IP rules even as they press poor countries to adopt the West's legal regime":

While the US and Europe mull such changes, they are pressuring India to adopt a strong patent law that sanctions only closed and proprietary models for controlling access to knowledge.

Why such intransigence in the West about relaxing IP rules in order to help the poorest, most needy nations develop? Perhaps because in this time of American triumphalism, the West thinks it can prevail through sheer force. This is apparently the plan at WIPO, which has refused even to allow an open debate on the issue.