Specialised Agencies of the United Nations (Immunities and Privileges) (Amendment) Order 1985 (Hansard, 25 February 1985)

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Specialised Agencies of the United Nations (Immunities and Privileges) (Amendment) Order 1985 be approved.
This order would add the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) to the list of United Nations specialised agencies on which we confer a range of privileges and immunities. With your Lordships' permission, I should like, at the same time, to speak to the draft International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (Legal Capacities) Order 1985.
The United Kingdom was among the founders of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), which came into being in 1970. It was formed by uniting two existing organizations, the International Union for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Work, and the International Union for the Protection of Industrial Property. The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a recommendation making WIPO the 14th specialised agency, with its headquarters in Geneva. It aims to promote internationally the protection of inventions, trade marks, industrial designs and copyright.
It is proposed that the United Kingdom should undertake to apply the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the Specialised Agencies of the United Nations in respect of WIPO; and the order before your Lordships will enable this to be done. The order amends the Specialised Agencies of the United Nations (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1974 by adding WIPO to the list of Specialised Agencies on which the order confers privileges and immunities. The order will place WIPO on the same footing as the eight other specialised agencies in relation to which we have accepted the Specialised Agencies Convention.
The WIPO has no current plans to establish an office in the United Kingdom; but its staff, including the director-general, visit London in their official capacity. Expert level meetings are held in London from time to time, and the organisation's officials attend. This order will assist the WIPO to perform its functions in this country.
The order before your Lordships will confer the full range of privileges and immunities normally accorded to such UN organisations in accordance with the Specialised Agencies Convention. This includes immunity from legal process for the organisation with a range of fiscal privileges, and full diplomatic immunities and privileges on the four high officers. Other staff members of the organisation, and representatives attending meetings, will enjoy limited privileges and immunities; in particular, they will enjoy immunity from legal process only in respect of official functions.
I turn now, with your Lordships' permission, to the draft order relating to the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants. This order would accord only legal capacities to the union.
818 The union promotes international co-operation in the introduction of plant variety legislation. Its member states are required to acknowledge the achievements of breeders of new plant varieties by making a law which confers an exclusive property right in the form of a special title or patent. The United Kingdom was the first country to ratify the original convention in 1965. In 1978 a revised convention was adopted, and the order before your Lordships is required to give effect to Article 24(1) of that revised convention. The order would confer upon the union the legal capacities of a body corporate. In other words, the order will enable the union to contract, sue and be sued, and to hold property. It accords no immunity from jurisdiction either to the organisation or to staff members.
The United Kingdom ratified the convention in 1983, and this order, which is necessary to ensure that the United Kingdom is in a position to implement its obligations under Article 24 of the convention, clearly should have been made before ratification. I regret this oversight. Steps are being taken to underline once more to departments the need to draw the attention of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to any treaty provisions relating to legal capacities or privileges and immunities as early as possible, and certainly before ratification.
In conclusion, I hope that your Lordships can signify your support of the work of these two organisations, both in their separate ways dedicated to protecting original ideas and work, by approving these draft orders. I beg to move.

§ Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos
My Lords, I know that the House will be grateful to the noble Baroness for explaining the two orders. I must confess that I found the first one—that dealing with international immunities and privileges—to be slightly complicated to unravel. However, as I proceeded to dissect it, I found it a very important order. For so weighty and impressive a title—the World Intellectual Property Organisation—it has a very frivolous acronym—namely, WIPO. However, as the noble Baroness has said, its objectives are very important; they are the protection of inventions, trade marks, industrial designs and copyright, all of which are matters of the greatest interest to our country.
We therefore warmly support the order which would add WIPO to the list of specialised agencies upon which the order would confer privileges and immunities. The noble Baroness said in respect of this organisation or the other agency which comes under the second order that there are no offices in London, notwithstanding their considerable importance to the United Kingdom, but that we shall have to depend upon visits by the director general or members of his staff from Geneva. It is sometimes useful to have a base in this country as well as overseas, especially where the objectives of the agencies are matters of acute concern to so many people.
The point which also obviously occurs to us, especially in the light of recent events both in this country and elsewhere, is that the order means a still 819 further increase in the number of those who will enjoy diplomatic immunity in this country. Perhaps we can be told by the noble Baroness the precise number involved. I do not wish to exaggerate this point and I am sure that the number involved is not significant; I also note that they will enjoy immunities only in respect of their official use. However, as noble Lords will appreciate, this aspect of the matter is a sensitive one and it should not be overlooked at this time. We shall of course be debating these matters again when the Government's Command Paper is published and when the review of the Vienna Convention is made public. Subject to these remarks, we support the order and warmly commend the work of this organisation.
I now turn to the second order; namely, the one which deals with the protection of new varieties of plants. I note that the object of this order is a simple one—to give effect to Article 24(1) of the convention which set up the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants. The United Kingdom ratified this convention some 20 years ago. I think that Britain was the first to do so and we were joined by other countries later on. I should be grateful if the Minister would tell us how many countries are now members of the convention and how many have ratified it.
Although, as the noble Baroness has indicated, we are dealing here with a fairly technical point, the occasion enables me to make two remarks which I regard as being of the first importance. The first is that this country has an unbeatable record in the introduction of new plant varieties, as everyone in the House who has any knowledge of agriculture will at once appreciate, and a first-rate record in the research which is involved in this. I believe that our plant breeding stations throughout the United Kingdom are the envy of the world. I have spoken in the House on the value of these plant breeding stations and specifically, if I may be permitted to say so, on the value of the Welsh Plant Breeding Station in Aberystwyth which has made a unique contribution, not least to the countries of the third world.
Secondly, if we accept that this is true and against the background of the appalling tragedies which are unfolding in Africa—and in particular in the Horn of Africa—in my view it is deplorable that the Government should be severely cutting back on agricultural research at this very time. We shall of course return to this matter on a more suitable occasion in the future. However, I believe that it is my duty to stress that if our membership of this union which we are now discussing is to be meaningful we of all countries must maintain the reputation that we have gained over the years.
This is a matter which causes acute concern to the agricultural departments of our universities, to the agricultural colleges in Britain, to all the research stations that I have mentioned, and to the Agricultural and Food Research Council itself, of which the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, is the distinguished chairman. I have read some letters which the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, has written expressing his acute concern about that. One is a letter dated 22nd January and is to the editor of the Farmers' Weekly. Another letter was written on the same date by the deputy chairman 820 and secretary to the Agricultural and Food Research Council, Sir Ralph Riley, to The Times. No doubt noble Lords have read that letter.
Both letters make it abundantly clear that there is most serious concern about the future of agricultural research and the production of new strains of plants in this country. If the cuts which the Government, in the person of the Minister of Agriculture, now propose take place, that work will be severely affected. Perhaps I may read one paragraph from Sir Ralph Riley's letter. He says: Different issues now face agriculture. We require significantly to increase the competitiveness and efficiency of production rather than its volume; to sustain the effective use of land and practise farming in ways that do not offend the increasing 'green' sensitivities; and to ensure that the cost of imported food does not become an insupportable burden upon our balance of payments when the contribution from oil diminishes. These are new objectives for agricultural research in changed economic and social conditions. Scientists who have so successfully assisted the nation to achieve increased production can be expected to contribute equally effectively to the new goals. Short term savings could destroy this valuable capability. If the new cuts are implemented".— and this is the point I want to stress— the spend per head of the population on agricultural and food R & D [research and development] in the United Kingdom would be lower than that of all other Community countries except Greece and Italy". Sir Ralph goes on to ask the question. "Is that acceptable?" One thing I am absolutely certain of is that it is not acceptable to noble Lords on all sides of this House who have an experience of agriculture, because the consequences can be extremely serious.
I realise that I have gone a little out of the way in one sense, and I apologise for any difficulties I may have created for the noble Baroness whose field is, I know, rather wider than this, but nevertheless I cannot really apologise for referring to this in view of the opportunity afforded to me by the short debate on this order. May I end by saying that we support the order, but that we urge the Government to reconsider their approach to this whole question of plant breeding generally. If they do so, they will have earned the gratitude of this House.

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, for his approach to these two orders and for his support of them. As he has rightly said, broadly speaking the first one on the WIPO—which I agree is not perhaps the happiest of acronyms—is in fact to protect original work on industrial inventions. The second order is to protect original work on plant breeding. These are two issues which I think we can both agree are important, and which these orders are designed to help.
The noble Lord asked me a number of specific questions. He first raised the question of privileges and immunities for diplomats who might be involved in the work of WIPO. Its headquarters are of course in Geneva, but there will from time to time be people visiting this country, and as I understand it four persons are entitled to full diplomatic privileges when they are in the United Kindom. Other staff members would enjoy official act immunity.
On the question of the order on plant varieties, the noble Lord asked me how many members had ratified the convention. I can tell him that 17 states have 821 ratified, and two more have signed but have not yet ratified. I think the noble Lord would agree that his remarks about the Agriculture and Food Research Council are rather wide of the two orders on the Order Paper, and I am sure that he will understand if I do not follow him in what he said on that matter. May I conclude by saying that I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, has supported the principle of these two orders which we believe to be important for two groups of people.