Decision-Making Bodies

All decisions governing WIPO’s strategic direction and activities are made by the member states. The WIPO Secretariat coordinates formal and informal meetings of the member state bodies throughout the year.

The principal committees and decision-making bodies are listed below.

Governing Bodies

The following constituent organs, established by the WIPO Convention, are WIPO’s highest decision-making bodies. They meet in September/October in Geneva in ordinary session every two years, and in extraordinary session in alternate years.

• The WIPO General Assembly (for composition and functions see article 6 of the WIPO Convention)
• The WIPO Conference (see article 7)
• The WIPO Coordination Committee (see article 8)

In addition:

• The Assemblies of the member states of each of the Unions, (e.g. the PCT Union Assembly; the Madrid Union Assembly etc.) were established by the respective WIPO-administered treaties.
   

Standing Committees

These are ad hoc committees of experts. Standing committees are established by a decision of the General Assembly for a given purpose, e.g. to determine the need or otherwise for new treaty provisions.

When a Standing Committee determines that sufficient progress has been made in order to move towards treaty adoption, the General Assembly can decide to convene a Diplomatic Conference. This is a high level meeting of member states, convened purely to finalize negotiations on a new treaty.  See, for example, the Diplomatic Conference on a Revised Trademark Law Treaty.
 

Permanent Committees

The International Classification treaties (i.e. the Locarno, Nice, Strasbourg and Vienna Agreements) established permanent Committees of Experts with a mandate periodically to revise and update the classification systems.

Any of the Governing Bodies can constitute committees as required. For example:

Working Groups

A Standing Committee or other body can decide to establish a working group to examine a particular question in more detail (e.g. the open ended working group established by the eighth session of the Program and Budget Committee).