Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Visually Disabled: Putting an End to Global Book Famine

Abstract

The access to knowledge opens the door to a good education, successful employment and a fruitful and independent personal life. The right to education remains unachievable for blind, visually impaired and print disabled persons due to absence of reading material in accessible formats, such as braille, large prints, audio cassettes, etc. The visually impaired persons do not have adequate access to the published works, due to which they fail to achieve equal opportunities in society. In order to facilitate access to published works for the aforesaid persons, the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled was adopted on 27 June, 2013 at WIPO. The Treaty obligates Contracting Parties to provide limitation or exception to the right of reproduction, the right of distribution, and the right of making available to the public in their national laws to facilitate the availability of works in accessible format copies for beneficiary persons. Such limitation or exception is to permit changes needed to make the work accessible in the alternative format. India is the first country to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty. The Marrakesh Treaty, which came into force on 30th September 2016, is a welcome step towards the realization of human rights of the beneficiaries. The Treaty aims at improving access for the beneficiaries to publish works in the formats such as Braille, Daisy, large print text, audio books, etc. The Treaty is just first step towards the ending of book scarcity for the beneficiaries. The States will have to show their will by becoming party to this Treaty and to amend their laws accordingly.