The international trade union movement has warned of growing social unrest and increased social hardship if trade liberalisation continues against the backdrop of harsh unemployment and austerity measures. Sharan Burrow, General Secretary International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), said that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has done nothing to prevent trade imbalances growing to unsustainable levels accompanied by dangerously widening income inequality. The ITUC is calling for an evaluation of the Doha round outcomes to assess its impact on providing decent work, improved living standards and diversifying the economies of developing countries. It argues that, without measuring the impact on developing countries and workers, it makes little sense to move forward with trade liberalisation.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
This book examines various views of the role of intellectual property rights (IPRs) as incentives for innovation against the backdrop of development and the transfer of technology between globalised, knowledge-based, high technology economies. The book retraces the origins, content and interpretations of the TRIPS Agreement, including its interpretations by WTO dispute settlement organs. It also analyses sources of controversy over IPRs, examining pharmaceutical industry strategies of emerging countries with different IPR policies. The continuing international debate over IPRs is examined in depth, as are TRIPS rules and the controversy about implementing the 'flexibilities' of the Agreement in the light of national policy objectives. The author concludes that for governments in developing countries, as well as for their business and scientific communities, a great deal depends on domestic policy objectives and their implementation. IPR protection should be supporting domestic policies for innovation and investment. This, in turn requires a re-casting of the debate about TRIPS, to place cooperation in global and efficient research and development at the heart of concerns over IPR protection.
The fallout from United States-sponsored experiments with pandemic influenza strains has raised strong biosafety concerns and raised dilemmas for implementing the World Health Organization's Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (PIP) Framework. Scientists in the United States (US) have created a new, potent virus, and as a result of outbreak fears, US officials have imposed a de facto moratorium on publication of the studies and are debating proposals to censor public versions of the papers, while restricting access to the scientific details to laboratories that have a "legitimate" need to know. The situation raises significant issues for the PIP Framework, which emphasises that significant research results with pandemic implications should be reported to the international laboratory system, and that novel potentially pandemic strains should be provided to the WHO System for characterisation by its laboratory network. In this case, however, it appears that the US will not be willing to share its viruses and research results with WHO Member States, contradicting its pro-sharing position taken in the negotiation of the PIP Framework.
Chinese economic success is not the product of free market accidental coincidence, according to this article – rather, it is orchestrated by the State through a mixture of nationalism (‘big think’) and pragmatic decisions (disjointed incrementalism) in agriculture, finance and industry. By following the Chinese example, the author argues for Pan-Africanism, a form of ‘big think’. The main obstacle to development in Africa, he argues, may well be how to align the vested, narrow interests of territorially bound rulers with their citizens, whose languages and cultures tend to transcend the colonially determined national boundaries and who are more likely to support development efforts if they are consonant with existing practices and values. The author argues that Pan-Africanism would allow Africa to take advantage of the economies of scale that accrue with larger markets, give Africa better leverage on its natural resources, allow for easier sharing of resources between rich and poor communities and give the continent greater international clout.
Even though Africa’s mineral resources are fuelling growth and development in many industrialised and emerging economies of the world, Africa still remains poor, under-developed and dependent on external funding, according to Jean Noel Francois of the African Union’s Department of Trade and Industry. He was speaking at the opening of the second conference of African Ministers responsible for mineral resources and development held from 12-16 December 2011 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Mr Francois said the 21st century’s commodity boom has alerted emerging global players to link mineral resource exploitation to infrastructure development, but Africa has yet to seize the opportunity to extract better benefits from its mineral resources to promote broad-based and integrated growth and economic development. Another presenter, Stephen Karinga, expressed frustration that Africa has not benefitted from the dramatic increase in prices for minerals since 2003 due to a number of structural weaknesses in its mineral sector. According to Karingi, in 2010, net profits for the top 40 global mining companies grew by 156% to US$110 billion, prompting countries like Australia and India to increase taxes on windfall earnings, yet Africa has been hesitant to do the same for fear of driving away mining companies.
In its Foreign Trade White Paper, China positions its foreign trade policy as based on constructing all-round economic and trade partnerships with mutually beneficial co-operation. China' s trade with Brazil, India and South Africa has been enjoying rapid growth in recent years, which the Chinese government argues promotes the development of the member countries' respective advantageous industries and shows the broad development prospects of emerging markets. In recent years China has seen relatively fast growth in its trade with other developing countries, including bilateral trade with African countries. Currently over 150 countries and regions have signed agreements on bilateral trade or economic co-operation with China, which has established and maintains high-level economic dialogue mechanisms. Although China's foreign trade is still hampered by many uncertainties and is bound to meet new difficulties and challenges, during the 12th Five-year Plan (2011-2015) the government intends to open itself wider to the outside world as a driver for further reform, development and innovation, and integrate itself into the world economy on a wider scale and at a higher level.
The tenth anniversary of the November 2001 Doha Ministerial Declaration on TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) and Public Health was celebrated at the Symposium on Global Health Diplomacy, held in November 2011 at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) headquarters in Switzerland. According to Pascal Lamy, head of the WTO, before the declaration was issued, intellectual property (IP) protection and the WTO’s TRIPS Agreement were often considered simply to be an obstacle to public health, but stakeholders have realised the two issues are not contradictory. Lamy added that the main responsibility for ensuring coherence on the public health/IP agenda is within national governments, including how IP is handled in bilateral or regional free trade agreements. Lamy highlighted two benefits of the Declaration. First, it allowed ministers to alter the TRIPS agreement so that developing countries could use compulsory licences to manufacture generic medicines exclusively for export to countries unable to make them themselves (the Paragraph 6 system). Second, the Declaration led the WTO to scale up technical assistance to developing countries on understanding and implementing various flexibilities (such as compulsory licensing and parallel importing) in the TRIPS Agreement.
The Deputy Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, Erastus Jarnalese Onkundi Mwencha, says the structure of the economic partnership agreement between the continent and the European Union is not to Africa’s advantage, arguing instead for regional integration. He explained that regional integration will help develop larger markets, foster greater competition and improve the policy stance in many areas of the development agenda. Progress towards increased intra-African trade as a major objective of an economic integration agenda has been less than impressive, he added. The structures of African economies have been intended to produce raw materials for export. Mwencha argues that African countries need to add value to their raw materials and use the rest of the continent as a base for industrialisation and trade.
According to the World Health Organisation, the right mix of climate change mitigation policies for the housing sector could lead to very large health co-benefits, including reductions in noncommunicable and infectious diseases. Non-communicable diseases can be reduced through mitigation measures that: reduce exposure to extreme heat and cold; reduce mould and dampness; improve natural ventilation and provide for safer, more energy-efficient home heating and appliances. There is also evidence that housing improvements increase well-being and mental health. Infectious diseasescan be prevented through low-energy and climate-friendly designs to: improve natural ventilation; limit vector and pest infestations (e.g. sealing of cracks, window screening); and improve access to safe drinking water and sanitation as part of planning and siting. Good ventilation is critical to ensure health gains from energy-efficient and weather-tight housing, as insufficient natural ventilation is associated with higher risk of airborne disease transmission, dampness and accumulation of indoor pollutants that are risk factors for allergies and asthma. Energy-efficient biomass and gas cookstoves can help avert a large proportion of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in poor countries by reducing exposure to indoor cookstove smoke.
Low-carbon transport measures can provide ‘win-win’ options for developed and developing countries that benefit health as well as reducing climate change, suggests this new report by the World Health Organisation, launched at COP17 in Durban, South Africa on 6 December 2011. Among the measures are better systems for rapid transit, walking and cycling, as well as urban land use that emphasises greater ‘access’ to key destinations by these modes. These strategies all can help to: promote physical activity, which can prevent heart disease some cancers and type 2 diabetes; reduce health-harming air pollution exposures; and reduce injury risks when cycle/pedestrian networks are made safer.