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Thai CSOs warn the senate’s subcommittee about the ongoing FTA negotiation with the EU on TRIPs-plus provisions harmful to access to medicines
10-Jan-2025 Access to Medicines
FTA Watch representatives warned that stricter IP rules in a potential EU FTA could impact access to medicines, increase healthcare costs, and harm Thailand’s domestic pharmaceutical industry. They also highlighted concerns about EU demands regarding government procurement, plant variety protection (UPOV 1991), and import of remanufactured goods.
Thai CSOs’ letter to the EU chief negotiator regarding concerns over the ongoing FTA negotiation with Thailand
29-Nov-2024 Access to medicines
Civil society and non-government organizations in Thailand oppose the provisions proposed by the EU that will have a vast and adverse impact on access to medicines, universal health coverage scheme, agriculture, food sovereignty, consumer protection, and livelihoods of Thai people.
Civil society groups unite to monitor the 4th round of Thailand-EU FTA negotiation
26-Nov-2024 Thaiplus Net
Thai civil society groups, including FTA Watch and the Thai Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, have expressed serious concerns over the ongoing Thailand-EU Free Trade Agreement negotiations. Key issues include stricter intellectual property rights, which could impact access to affordable medicines, and potential threats to food security and public health. The groups are urging the Thai government to prioritize public health and environmental concerns over corporate interests.
India-UK FTA: Public health must get priority in trade talks
12-Jul-2024 Policy Circle
The India-UK FTA is expected to promote the free movement of goods and services, significantly impacting access to pharmaceuticals, medicines, and devices. FTAs pose new challenges for public health activists in India, necessitating appropriate actions to monitor and advocate for change. This is particularly important for public health advocates concerned with the broader commercial determinants of health.
I-EU CEPA negotiations hijack democratic rights and ignore potentional impacts on society
4-Jul-2024 Indonesia AIDS Coalition
Indonesia for Global Justice (IGJ) and the Indonesia AIDS Coalition (IAC) criticized the I-EU CEPA, which hijacked the people’s rights to democracy while ignoring the negotiations’ wider impact. The I-EU CEPA negotiations lacked transparency, ignored public aspirations, and did not allow for meaningful participation from civil society groups.
India’s newly amended patent rules threaten affordable medicines in the Global South
2-May-2024 Peoples Dispatch
It is no coincidence that just five days before the amendments were announced, India signed a Free Trade Agreement with the European Free Trade Association.
Implications for intellectual property rights following Switzerland and India’s new free trade agreement
27-Mar-2024 Lexology
The FTA contains various provisions on the protection of intellectual property rights that will influence trade between Swiss and Indian companies.
MSF response to signing of EFTA-India trade agreement
15-Mar-2024 MSF
MSF is concerned that certain clauses related to intellectual property in this trade deal could significantly undermine the use of existing public health measures enshrined in Indian patent law.
Swiss trade deal: Is India changing its tune on pharma patents?
27-Feb-2024 SWI
Intellectual property protection for the Swiss pharmaceutical industry has been a key sticking point in negotiations on a free trade agreement with India. Now there seems to be a breakthrough in talks after 16 years. What’s changed?
Thorny clause in ripening India-European Free Trade Association deal may hit generic drug industry
14-Feb-2024 The Hindu
The clause in the draft free trade agreement text could delay access to affordable, generic versions of patented drugs in India by a minimum of six years, according to documents.
New patent rules in India-UK trade agreement will prioritise pharmaceutical profit over public health
13-Feb-2024 AFTINET
The “TRIPS-Plus” provisions in the India-UK Agreement are a dangerous attempt to increase the power of pharmaceutical companies by placing profits before public health.
EFTA-India FTA: Article on protection of undisclosed information (intellectual property chapter draft, Jan 2024)
12-Feb-2024
Letter: Civil society calls on UK Prime Minister to ensure UK-India free trade agreement does not threaten access to affordable medicines
23-Jan-2024 MSF
MSF and over 50 UK-based civil society organisations and individuals sent this open letter to United Kingdom Prime Minister, urging him to commit that the UK-India Free Trade Agreement will not gut the public health safeguards that are in India’s intellectual property laws.
AfCFTA: More free trade? For whose benefit?
13-Oct-2023 bilaterals.org & GRAIN
So what does this trade deal mean for ordinary Africans in a time of deep climate, economic and food crises?
Kenya, Indonesia to sign preferential trade agreement
11-Sep-2023 Nation
Kenya and Indonesia yesterday signed four bilateral agreements on food security, mining, renewable energy and health following talks between President William Ruto and Indonesia’s Joko Widodo.
EU trade deals risk affordability of generic medicines for Global South
28-Jul-2023 Politico
The disproportionate intellectual property protections the bloc proposes could threaten the affordability of generics that countries like India and Indonesia export to poorer nations.
Proposed EU-India FTA
30-Jun-2023 Heinrich Böll Stiftung
Can India protect its development objectives by signing a free trade agreement with an unequal partner with different ambitions?
Clamour against United Kingdom’s free-trade negotiator
20-Mar-2023 The Telegraph
Groups from India and nearly 40 countries express concern about a leaked chapter from the proposed FTA that they say appears to represent ‘a wish list’ of the pharmaceutical industry.
India-UK FTA leaked draft reveals nobody’s gain except big pharma
30-Nov-2022 Info Justice
India - UK FTA provisions favor neither India nor the UK except the pharma industry in a big way. It defeats the firm stand taken by the Indian PM three years ago when he decided to pull out of the RCEP against the corporate interests over people’s lives.
MSF responds to UK’s disastrous proposal on intellectual property in UK-India Free Trade Agreement
2-Nov-2022 MSF
UK IP demands contain provisions that would drastically harm access to affordable, lifesaving generic medicines from India, upon which millions of people around the world rely.