Republic of Uganda and Kingdom of Lesotho ratify Marrakesh treaty

The Republic of Uganda and Kingdom of Lesotho have become the 36th and 37th countries respectively in the world to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty. 

At an Expert Panel Discussion on the Marrakesh Treaty on the 27th April 2018 in Entebbe Uganda during SCECSAL 2018 , it was unanimously agreed that member countries should take on this task seriously and this will form the basis for future discussions like in Namibia 2020.

The massage was well received as two more African countries Uganda and Lesotho joined the ever growing list of countries who have ratified the treaty. Other countries in Africa who have already ratified the treaty are: Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Tunisia and Mali.

Before the treaty, one could not access information from other countries in a format suitable for blind persons. This situation resulted in reproducing what was already available at an extra cost just because sharing such material is blocked by the copyright jurisdiction. 

The treaty therefore acknowledges the legitimate commercial interest of the publishers who have that as a living and argued that by this sharing; no one is injuring the publishers because they are not publishing it in accessible formats for blind persons.

In other words their target population excludes the blind which would by no means reduce their profits if the treaty holds.  

Before the treaty, less than 5% of all books published were made accessible to the blind in the world. It was difficult to have current books in accessible formats including Braille, audio or large prints.  

Accordingly, global uproars have called for ratification in all member countries. This would ensure that published material in accessible format can be exchanged across the borders of those countries that have ratified the Treaty.   

In response to the global calls, Uganda and Lesotho have joined the list of countries to ratify the treaty.  This is a very strong statement in the history on the two African countries and for visually impaired persons and persons with print disabilities. 

We congratulate the two countries and we look forward to domesticating this into the respective national legal framework. 

The Marrakesh Treaty Expounded 

 The Marrakesh Treaty was adopted by many countries including Uganda in June 2013 during the Diplomatic Conference in Marrakesh, Morocco. It is the first legislative norm that has been developed to support the United Nations Convention on the Rights and of Persons with disabilities (UNCRPD) which Uganda ratified in 2008 and so, it is a direct contribution to the said Convention.

The goal of the Treaty is to help to end the ‘book famine’ faced by people who are blind, visually impaired or otherwise, print disabled who cannot access most of the published works.  

Currently only 1-7% of the world’s published books ever make it into accessible formats. Accessible formats in this case refer to large print for people with low Vision, Braille for those with total loss of sight (blind), and audio information (for both categories). 

This is partly due to access barriers in Copyright law; something the Treaty helps to address in two main ways: 

Firstly, countries which ratify the Treaty are required to have an exception to domestic copyright law for visually impaired and print disabled people.  

This means that such countries are obliged to ensure that their laws allow blind people and their organisations to have books produced in accessible formats without the need to ask permission first from the holders of the Copyright (for example author or publisher).  

Secondly, by allowing for import and export of accessible versions of books and other copyrighted works, again without seeking permission from the copyright-holder, this will help to avoid the duplication of transcription efforts in different countries, and also allow those with larger collections of accessible books to share these collections with visually impaired people in countries with fewer resources. 

It is noteworthy that “authorised entities”, such as blind people’s organisations can send accessible books under the Treaty’s terms. However, the Treaty allows accessible books to be imported / received either by other “authorised entities” or directly by visually impaired / print disabled individuals.

The said Treaty will enter into force, with respect to the Republic of Uganda, on July 23, 2018 and with respect to the Kingdom of Lesotho, on July 30, 2018 

Job well done to Uganda and Lesotho.