The Marrakesh treaty and the approach towards social inclusion

While there have been numerous measures that have been taken by international institutions, led by the UN, to foster equality, one issue that has received little attention till now has been what scholars have described as the book famine. Statistics show that the number of published books available in formats accessible for the print disabled people was less than 5% before 2013. However, 2013 was a landmark year to combat this problem and eliminate the scarcity of books available for them. On April 20, 2013 the Informal Session and Special Session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) had prepared a draft version of a text of a Treaty with an aim to facilitate access of readable material to the visually impaired persons and persons with print disabilities. This was subsequently discussed and adopted as the Marrakesh Treaty in the same year. Around six hundred delegates from among one hundred eighty-six member states of the WIPO joined the debate which led to the adoption of the Treaty in the Kingdom of Morocco.