A/HRC/28/57 67. Disability advocates have long expressed concern that copyright law can impede the adaptation of works into formats functional for people with disabilities when copyright holders fail to publish works in accessible formats, such as Braille, or allow others to do so. To resolve that problem, many countries have adopted copyright exceptions and limitations allowing authorized not-for-profit organizations to produce and distribute accessible works to persons with disabilities. In June 2013, WIPO member States adopted the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled. Under that treaty, which references the right to science and culture among its motivating principles, States commit to enacting exceptions and limitations to facilitate access to published works by persons with disabilities and to allow cross-border transfers of those works. 68. Problems of translation and linguistic barriers likewise are of concern for speakers of non-dominant languages. Copyright regimes are formally neutral regarding the language of a work. In practice, however, the results are widely disparate, as copyright protection offers little financial incentive to write and publish in most of the world’s languages. 22 People able to speak English, French or Spanish can select reading material from millions of books; however, those unable to speak a globally used language may enjoy access to very few. The vastly unequal distribution of published literary works across languages poses a significant barrier to the right to take part in cultural life for linguistic communities not offering a major publishing market. The issue is not limited to reading for pleasure; that also impacts the ability to pursue education and knowledge, take part in debates on social and political issues and earn a livelihood as a writer. 69. Previously, international copyright law offered greater encouragement to the flourishing of literature across many languages because it left the issue of translation rights to be decided by each country. Many countries treated translations as an original expression not requiring a licence from the author of the original work. That changed about a century ago, when revisions to the Berne Convention required that all countries accord copyright holders an exclusive right of translation. That global change overlooked the interests of linguistic groups for whom the ability to translate works into their vernacular languages was essential to promote education and cultural development.23 70. During the era of decolonization, in deference to the concerns of newly independent African countries eager to promote their own cultural and scientific development,24 the Berne Community negotiated the Stockholm Protocol Regarding Developing Countries, now incorporated into the Berne Appendix with Special Provisions for Developing Countries. The Berne Appendix allows for compulsory licences to facilitate translations.25 Unfortunately, that mechanism has proven ineffective, because the onerous conditions placed upon that option make it extremely difficult for developing countries to exercise.26 22 23 24 25 26 14 Lea Shaver, “Copyright and Inequality”, Washington University Law Review, No. 92 (2014), p. 117. Available from http://ssrn.com/abstract=2398373. See Lionel Bently, “Copyright, Translations, and Relations between Britain and India in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries”, Chicago-Kent Law Review, No. 82 (January 2007), p. 1181. Charles F. Johnson, “The Origins of the Stockholm Protocol”, Bulletin of the Copyright Society, No. 18 (1970), p. 91. Saleh Basalamah, “Compulsory Licensing for Translation: An Instrument of Development?”, IDEA, No. 40 (2000), p. 503. Ruth Okediji, “Toward an International Fair Use Doctrine”, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, vol. 39, No. 75 (2000), pp. 107–109; Okediji, ICTSD, pp. 15–16; Susan Isiko Štrba, International Copyright Law and Access to Education in Developing Countries: Exploring Multilateral Legal and Quasi-Legal Solutions (Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012), p. 108.