E-drug: WTO: Lamy must oppose the US goverment strategy
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Press Release 24 October 2001
WTO: Commissioner Lamy must oppose the US government
strategy
In spite of the mobilization of more than 50 countries, the United
States, supported by Canada, Switzerland and Japan, are currently
blocking World Trade Organisation negotiations for allowing access
to medicines in poor countries. The WTO Agreements as they stand
are posing a dire threat to world health. Yet, and despite the
terrifying spread of the HIV epidemic, rich countries still refuse to
heed reason.
While Mike Moore (WTO Director-General) and Robert Zoellick (US
Trade Representative) have systematically opposed developing
countries efforts to obtain a juridical guarantee for the human right
to health under WTO rules, Pascal Lamy (European Trade
Commissioner) who until now has pursued the policy of
ambiguousness, is presently in a position to put an end to the
deadly logic of the WTO.
On October 22, Mike Moore released the text of the Doha
declaration on intellectual property and access to medicines. The
entirety of the 52-developing-country Coalition's proposals for
authorizing public health measures and access to generic medicines
are ignored in that text. Once again the United States and WTO
merely offer juridically ambiguous paraphrasing of the TRIPS
Agreement, and avoid a clear and precise stand on exactly what is
allowed under WTO rules. At a time when the United States
themselves are considering allowing the generic copy of Bayer's
anthrax drug Cipro, in the name of the national security emergency,
the USTR continues to refuse that AIDS-ridden countries be plainly
allowed under WTO to copy drugs that fight HIV.
For Francisco Pessanha, Brazilian trade negotiator to WTO, 'global
public opinion must bear moral judgement on this refusal to protect
public health'.
Tadeous Chifamba, trade negotiator for Zimbabwe, adds that it
would be very worrisome if the WTO Agreement on intellectual
property should turn out to be part of the problem rather than the
solution, for the many countries whose immediate priority is to stop
the aids hecatomb. Should the Doha process end on such a
conclusion, the consequences might well affect the whole WTO
process.
Meanwhile, the European Union sticks to language aimed at
reassuring pharmaceutical companies and strengthening corporate
hold over global treatment access, with proposals that the WTO
now bind use of generic drugs to prior discount negotiations with
patent holders. After an 18-month-long consultation process with
civil society, including ACT UP-Paris, the EU is still proving
unwilling to take the legimate defence, against pharmaceutical
interests, of poor countries' right to health. This comes in the
fiercest contradiction with the clear mandate given by the European
Parliament two weeks ago that Mr Lamy defend poor countries'
access-to-medicines proposals in the WTO.
Trade Commissioner Lamy will bear a major part of the
responsibility for the human consequences of access-to-medicines
decisions made or not made at the WTO summit in Doha. When
AIDS is killing 10,000 human beings each day, Pascal Lamy must
oppose the US government's strategy in the WTO and support
developing countries' public health proposals.
Media contacts: Gaelle Krikorian, Khalil Elouardigghi
tel: 01 49 29 44 7 5
e-mail: galk@noos.fr
www.actupp.org - www.genericsnow.org
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