A Nigerian, Professor Adebambo Adewopo is among the frontline ten candidatures for the post of Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
The applications were received by 5 p.m. (Geneva time) on December 30, 2019, the deadline fixed for the submission of names, according to an email sent to available to TechEconomy.ng by the Organisation.
The candidates are (in alphabetical order of names of candidates):
Prof. Adebambo Adewopo (Nigeria)
Mr. Marco Matías Alemán (Colombia)
Mr. Ivo Gagliuffi Piercechi (Peru)
Dr. Edward Kwakwa (Ghana)
Mr. Kenichiro Natsume (Japan)
Mr. Dámaso Pardo (Argentina)
Mr. Jüri Seilenthal (Estonia)
Mr. Daren Tang (Singapore)
Ms. Saule Tlevlessova (Republic of Kazakhstan)
Ms. WANG Binying (China)
Brief bio of Prof. Adewopo
Prof. Adewopo, a former Director-General of the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) from 2004 to 2010, is an intellectual property (IP) law specialist.
He is currently a Professor at the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS).
Adewopo obtained his LLB (Hons) from the University of Maiduguri, Nigeria, and his postgraduate degrees from the University of Lagos and the Franklin Pierce Law Center, University of New Hampshire.
He has taught IP at Lagos State University, at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels, and has held Visiting Researcher positions at the Max Planck Institute in Munich (2003) and the Centre for Research in Intellectual Property and Information Technology, University of Edinburgh (2005).
The WIPO Coordination Committee, which is composed of 83 member states, will meet on March 5 and 6, 2020, to nominate a candidate for appointment to this position by the WIPO General Assembly, which is scheduled on May 7 and 8, 2020.
The process of selecting a Director General is governed by the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization and the “2019 Procedures for the Nomination and Appointment of Directors General of WIPO.”
