The Brazilian Patent Office has rejected a patent application by Gilead on the drug tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF), in a move that could increase access to a key HIV/AIDS medicine across the developing world. The decision means that the medicine can now be produced by Brazilian generic companies or imported from other generic sources from abroad. This is the first time that a patent related to an antiretroviral (ARV) medicine has been rejected as a result of a pre-grant opposition in Brazil. The patent office in Brazil rejected it on the grounds that it lacks inventiveness – one of the key requirements for a patent in Brazilian and international patent law. The consequences extend far beyond Brazil’s borders and may set a precedent for other developing nations.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
The behaviour of China and India as development partners is changing the global aid picture, most importantly in Africa. Welcomed by African governments as alternative sources of development finance to the West, they have modelled their development finance on a framework of concessional loans and aid for resource security and infrastructure reconstruction. But their development assistance remains negligible, compared to the DAC and multilateral donors, who remain Africa’s main development partners. Until fairly recently, both countries have received large Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) disbursements. Conflicting definitions of aid as co-operation or ODA, offered by the Chinese government and well positioned academic sources, reflect a lack of clarity in Chinese foreign aid policy. Trying to pigeon hole or compartmentalise aid policies in each country into neatly defined boxes proves difficult, particularly as China and India’s donor activities in Africa are often inextricably viewed together with commercial interests and investment projects.
Africa’s share of world trade declined from 5.5% in 1980 to 2% in 2003, with an overwhelming dependency on trade with the EU (European Union). Trade policies have a critical role to play in supporting economic development across Africa. These policies are increasingly set through agreements in international arenas. Whilst the World Trade Organisation has set trade rules that have implications for African countries, it is a new generation of bilateral/regional trade and investment agreements that will critically determine the types of trade and wider economic policies that governments can use to support development. There are widespread and justified fears that the configuration of the EPA negotiating blocs will undermine rather than promote aid effectiveness.
This policy brief assesses the current status of health and trade policies and analyses opposition to liberalizing trade in health care. It conceptualises and contrasts two international policy dialogues. One, typified by UN bodies such as the World Health Organisation, is skeptical - if not hostile - to increased trade in health care, particularly North-South integration. Its policy errs on the side of protectionism and favours an industrial policy approach. The other, operating under World Trade Organisation (WTO) discourse, has more of a free trade bent. And yet, in policy practice, few countries in the WTO trade in health care and trade agreements typically contain little to promote liberalisation. Examples in this study from those few (mainly developing) countries that have shown initiative towards trade in health care contradict this negative and apathetic approach. Countries as diverse as Brazil, China, Cuba, India and South Africa are already significant exporters of health care. Trade does hold some very tangible benefits for this sector, for North and South alike, and does not necessarily entail undermining government regulatory power. Further analysis of different health care systems’ trade-compatibility is needed.
This article discusses African countries and the second generation of ‘emerging market’ countries. Eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa have been deemed to meet the ‘emerging market’ criteria by the International Finance Corporation: Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The rise of some African countries to emerging market status gives them great economic opportunity. The article looks at ways to determine a countries growth prospects, depending on whether a country is resource-rich or resource-scarce.
The World Trade Organisation Doha Round talks ended bitterly on 31 July, but negotiators left town with the general consensus that hard-earned work to date should not be lost and that there might be resumption of talks sometime in the future. The fate of intellectual property (IP) issues at the WTO remains vague and may not come clear for weeks or months, according to some sources, while others said it will be business as usual for international trade rules on IP.
This article suggests that the recent collapse of the WTO mini-ministerial, July 2008, reflects the new geopolitics of the global economy. The emerging economies are approaching trade issues and negotiations differently. Particularly they place more emphasis on supporting women employed in agriculture. There is new conviction among negotiators that poverty and livelihood issues cannot be left to the market to be regulated. These concerns contributed to the collapse alongside the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) issues. The paper emphasises that the political value of technical issues should not be ignored. Reasons for this and for why the SSM was not the only reason for the collapse include:import surges of subsidised products could displace millions of people, giving the SSM major political value; the G33, the G7 and the G20 could not find a common position in discussions on the SSM; cotton, a highly politically contentious issue, was due to be discussed after the SSM and was likely to have caused problems; and agricultural market access discussions reflected a political choice that links growth to market access and ‘offensive interests’. In conclusion the paper notes: the context of the Uruguay Round no longer exists as the emerging economies now have a voice; there may be increasing use of the Dispute Settlement Body.
As the push toward neoliberalism advances, and quantitative measures to protect local markets, such as tariffs and quotas, disappear, industrial powers are turning to qualitative measures such as food safety regulations to further skew trade in their favour. In the food safety arena, both the US and the EU are pressing their standards on other countries. For Washington, even though its own food safety system is widely criticised as too lax, this means getting countries to accept GMOs and US meat safety inspections. For Brussels, whose food safety standards have a much better reputation, it means imposing high standards on countries that cannot meet them. Bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) have become a tool of choice to push through the changes.
‘Neoliberalism’, has guided the globalisation of economic activity and become the conventional wisdom in international agencies and institutions (such as the IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organisation and the technical agencies of the United Nations, including the WHO). Reproduced in the ‘Washington Consensus’ in the United States and the ‘Brussels Consensus’ in the European Union, this ideology has guided policies widely accepted as the only ones possible and advisable. This book assembles a series of articles that challenge that ideology. Written by well-known scholars, these articles question each of the tenets of neoliberal doctrine, showing how the policies guided by this ideology have adversely affected human development in the countries where they have been implemented.
Intellectual property is the last real comparative advantage that rich countries have, said a panellist at a recent International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) and UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) joint event. This may explain an increasing global drive for enforcement of these rights, but does not mean that such enforcement is necessarily good for developing countries.