WCO Members engage with IPR rights holders in Latin America and the Caribbean

The World Customs Organization (WCO) held a regional workshop from 11 to 13 December 2024 in the WCO Regional Training Centre in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

This event, organized thanks to funding from the Customs Cooperation Fund of China (CCF/China) and with the technical support of the Regional Intelligence Liaison Offices (RILOs) for the Latin America and Caribbean regions, brought together 16 supervisors and front-line officers with experience in IPR protection from the following WCO Member administrations: Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru.

In the light of the WCO's theme for 2024, "Customs Engaging Traditional and New Partners with Purpose ", and in keeping with the WCO Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Strategy 2020, working with rights holders remains centre stage in the WCO's approach to combating counterfeiting and piracy within its IPR, Health and Safety Programme.

Another major element of the IPR, Health and Safety Programme is the delivery of capacity-building and awareness-raising activities aimed at ensuring that WCO Members are fully equipped, at both the policy and operational levels, to combat counterfeiting and piracy.

During their presentations, rights holders shared, with the Customs officers in attendance, insights and practical knowledge of particular relevance for the detection of counterfeit pharmaceutical and consumer products.
In addition to promoting the WCO's new IPR tools, the WCO Secretariat representatives encouraged participation in the upcoming 2nd WCO Symposium on "Removing counterfeits from e-commerce", which will focus on issues posed by cross-border e-commerce involving substandard, counterfeit and falsified medicines and medical devices.

The workshop was led by two experts from the WCO Secretariat and two accredited experts from Argentina and the Dominican Republic. It also provided an opportunity to finalize the accreditation process for one pre-accredited expert, and culminated in a practical exercise conducted in Santo Domingo Port, which afforded participants the opportunity to become acquainted with the host country's IPR risk assessment process.

Upon conclusion of the event, certificates were awarded to all participating Customs officers who completed the training.

For further details of our IPR-related activities, please contact us at: [email protected]