This new book provides extensive evidence and data in accessible format for researchers and policymakers in the field of intellectual property rights and gives background information on the origins of the TRIPS Agreement for readers new to the subject. For scholars of international political economy and law, it is the first detailed exploration of the links between global IP politics and the implementation of IP reforms. It exposes how power politics occur not just within global trade talks but afterwards when countries implement agreements. The Implementation Game will be of interest to all those engaged in debates on the global governance of trade and intellectual property.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
The Implementation Game: The TRIPS Agreement and the Global Politics of Intellectual Property Reform in Developing Countries
Deere C: Oxford University Press, November 2008
WTO D-G challenges discontented WTO members to use TRIPS public health review
New W: Intellectual Property Watch:
Confronted with longstanding assertions that World Trade Organization rules intended to bring greater access to medicines to poor countries are not working, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy said discontented members should use the annual review of those rules if they have a complaint. In August 2003, the WTO General Council called for a resolution to the problem of countries lacking pharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities but who need to obtain cheaper medicines through a compulsory license. They created a waiver to the WTO rule that products manufactured under compulsory license must be substantially all for the domestic market. Only Rwanda has so far used the Paragraph 6 process and Lamy said no country had raised any significant concern in the annual review. But an official at the speech questioned the validity of the review process and suggested that no real review had taken place. Health activists have repeatedly said the waiver is too cumbersome to be useful and effective.
Back to Doha: Financing for development at stake
Valot H: e-CIVICUS 413, 31 October 2008
Doha is known for having its name attached to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Doha Development Round, the current trade-negotiation round of the World Trade Organisation which commenced in November 2001. As of 2008, talks have stalled over a divide on major issues, such as agriculture, industrial tariffs and non-tariff barriers, services, and trade remedies. Major negotiations are not expected to resume until 2009. Civil society organisations have pointed out a need for a strong regulatory framework to counter well-documented abuses, and ensure positive developmental impacts of foreign direct investment. They recommended specific mechanisms, such as country-by-country reporting to regulate transnational corporations, policies to harness the revenue from natural resource extraction and commitment to combat increasing trade and investment liberalisation.
Civil society's open letter to the IMF and World Bank
Democracy in Action: 2008
With many countries repaying their loans to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and not seeking new lines of credit, the institution’s traditional means of generating income is dwindling. Facing a budget shortfall of US$400 million in 2010, in April, the IMF’s Executive Board approved a proposal to sell some of its gold reserves. The revenue will be used to create an endowment whose earnings will assist in financing the institution’s administrative budget. Civil society is writing to urge that before the Executive Board implements gold sales, it must insist on meaningful pro-development reforms in IMF policy in developing countries and attach conditions to how gold sales will occur. Over the last three decades, IMF policies have limited development, and denied opportunity and decent livelihoods to hundreds of millions of people.
Team of experts form WHO Working Group on Intellectual Property and Neglected Diseases
Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 19 November 2008
The World Health Organization has released a long-awaited list of high-level experts tasked with finding innovative funding mechanisms for needed medical research on neglected diseases. The list largely contains governmental and intergovernmental representatives, and first reactions to it have been generally positive. The creation of this ‘results-oriented and time-limited’ expert group was a key outcome of the WHO’s global strategy and plan of action on public health, innovation and intellectual property, approved at World Health Assembly in May. The 24-member body will look at the current financing and coordination of research and development, as well as proposals for new and innovative sources of funding to stimulate research and development in diseases which disproportionately effect developing countries.
Aid agencies say rich countries are blocking anti-poverty economic action
Ekklesia: 25 September 2008
While world leaders gathered in New York for a high-level meeting last month in New York on the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), international development agencies, including Britain's Christian Aid, warned that progress is being hampered by the activities of rich countries and big business. Christian Aid said that the problems were due to short-sighted trade liberalisation imposed on poor countries and the use of offshore havens by transnational corporations to reduce their tax liabilities in the developing world, grievously undermining international aid efforts. The aims of the MDGs were wholly desirable but rich countries were likely to argue about how much more aid they could afford, instead of addressing trade liberalisation and offshore havens.
EU's economic partnership agreements can spread conditions for finance crisis to South countries
Smith S: SUNS, 2 October 2008
Economic partnership agreements were one of the topics discussed at the 6th African, Caribbean and Pacific Summit of Heads of State and Government held in Accra, Ghana from 30 September to 3 October. African, Caribbean and Pacific countries decided whether to sign agreements that they have initialled, re-negotiate them or expand interim goods agreements further. Among the conclusions of the analysis of this topic are that the provisions on movement of capital and entry of EU providers of financial services may magnify the problem of instability that new financial services generate, and that the developing countries would have to undertake obligations in market access and rules in new areas (investment, government procurement, competition policy) that had been rejected as negotiating topics in the WTO. For example the right to regulate services has been narrowed further than GATS, universal service provision will be more limited.
Millennium Campaign calls for coherent action on trade imbalances
Joy Online: 21 September 2008
The Executive Coordinator of the Millennium Campaign has called for coherent global collaborative action to effectively deal with trade imbalances suffered by developing countries. Addressing the inaugural Geneva Trade and Development Forum at Crans-Montana, she bemoaned the current situation where developing countries are left fragmented in negotiating processes: ‘It is time to make trade policies part of the broader relationship, not just with other countries, but, more importantly part of the broader agenda of challenges of global poverty, the environment and security.’ Included in the agenda should be the issues of public health, food security and nutrition, as well as the relationships among the three.
The South strikes back against overreaching intellectual property enforcement
Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 17 September 2008
Some developing nations nave accused developed nations of overreaching themselves in their push to escalate enforcement of intellectual property rights and want their efforts to be reined in and centralised in the World Intellectual Property Organisation. This especially applies to a secret negotiation led by the United States, Europe and Japan to create an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The ACTA might create trade barriers and harm consumers, domestically and outside the signatory nations. The agreement lacks ‘democracy’ and balance, as it relies heavily on industry groups and rights holders with no representation on behalf of consumers. And as the law enforcement side rises, individual legal rights may be diminished. Secrecy around the treaty negotiation has fuelled speculation that its terms will undermine vital consumer interests, including access to low-cost generic medicines.
Unity in diversity: Governance adaptation in multilateral trade institutions through South-South coalition building
Yu VPB: South Centre, 2008
This paper from the South Centre is concerned with the widening development gap in the setting of new international policy regimes and a changing global economic environment. It discusses participation and developing country governance adaptation issues in the WTO and in the UN Conference on Trade and development (UNCTAD). It concludes that developing country group action should be an essential component in global trade governance. Inclusive governance will require clear policy issue and agenda articulation from shared understanding, institutionalised coordination and group leadership mechanisms, good working relationships between individual country delegates and other developing country delegates, and full and continuous institutional support of high professional quality.