On 8 July 2026, the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that hosts Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, was — for the sixth time — denied permanent observer status at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The decision, driven by a single veto from China, once again excludes Wikipedia, the world’s largest online repository of free and open knowledge created by a global community of nearly 250,000 volunteers, from participating in the international forum that shapes the future of intellectual property (IP) policy. 

WIPO is the UN specialized agency that discusses, negotiates, and approves international rules and frameworks for IP worldwide, which UN Member States use to draft and implement national laws that directly affect access to and content on open knowledge infrastructure such as Wikipedia and other digital public goods. 

Blocking the Wikimedia Foundation’s WIPO permanent observer status denies billions of Wikipedia users across over 300 languages a chance to be represented in decisions about how they work and what they can read online. Further, WIPO and its Member States are deprived of learnings from the Wikipedia community, including their 25 years of experience navigating modern and flexible copyrights and, more recently, one of the most pressing policy challenges: balancing creators’ rights with scalable public access to open knowledge in a time of artificial intelligence (AI). Excluding the Wikimedia Foundation from WIPO is especially concerning because Wikipedia is consistently used as one of the highest-quality datasets to train large language models (LLMs). 

In vetoing the Foundation’s membership, the representative for China misrepresented Wikipedia’s volunteer-driven policies and practices, all of which are rooted in accuracy and neutrality and help effectively counter misinformation and disinformation online. Concerningly, this sustained opposition seems to signal a broader trend in suppressing legitimate participation and debate of civil society organizations — as shown earlier this year by the cancellation of RightsCon, the world’s largest digital rights conference. 

“Despite many years of vetoes from China, we will continue to pursue accreditation at WIPO on behalf of Wikipedia’s global reader and volunteer contributor community, who deserve to have a voice in the policy discussions that directly impact the future of open source knowledge projects like Wikipedia,” said Stephen LaPorte, General Counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation. “The systematic exclusion of the Wikimedia Foundation from WIPO reflects the deeply troubling trend of civil society being pushed out of the rooms where policy is being made. Digital public goods like Wikipedia and Wikidata must be given a seat at the table to ensure the future of intellectual property policy continues to benefit the global common good.” 

Germany, acting as the coordinator of the WIPO group of industrialized countries (which includes Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Turkey, the Holy See, and many European Union Member States), supported the Foundation’s accreditation request.

Alongside Germany, individual Member States, including Canada, France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, expressed strong public support for the Foundation’s application. The supporting countries highlighted that the Wikimedia Foundation would bring invaluable insights and practical experience to WIPO’s ongoing mission.  

We call on all WIPO Member States and leadership to help resolve this political impasse and ensure that WIPO’s work enables the technical and legal viability of a free, open, neutral, and collaborative internet, now and in our shared future. 

As a recognized observer at the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and member of the Digital Public Goods Alliance, the Wikimedia Foundation will continue to advocate for free and open knowledge on the global stage, including in important conversations about AI governance and the future of knowledge in a digital age.

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The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. We support the people, technology, and policies that enable reliable information to be shared with the world. The Wikimedia Foundation is a United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA. Visit our website to learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia.