People living with HIV call out EU hypocrisy on MDGs as it pushes FTAs
The European Union’s Free Trade Agreements threaten MDG progress
People living with HIV call out EU hypocrisy on Millennium Development Goals as it forces its trade agreements on developing countries, seizes generic drugs and negotiates ACTA
28 September 2010, New Delhi and Bangkok: With the conclusion of the MDG Summit last week in New York, people living with HIV across Asia are calling out the European Union’s hypocrisy on claims that it supports the MDGs when it is pursuing aggressive trade policies that threaten worldwide access to medicines. The EU is pushing greater intellectual property protection or monopolies on medicines that prevent the production, export or import of safe, effective and affordable generic versions of expensive medicines.
A recently released study estimates that 80% of the worlds AIDS drugs come from India. The ‘MDG Outcome Document’ adopted by consensus last week and is meant to represent the commitment of the United Nations General Assembly to the fulfilment of the MDGs calls for “planning for long-term sustainability, including addressing the expected increase in demand for second and third line drug regimens to treat HIV, malaria and tuberculosis.” (para 76e) It is these newer medicines that will not be available from generic companies if the EU has its way in free trade agreement negotiations with India. The EU is demanding newer monopolies on medicines, longer patent terms and enforcement measures for intellectual property. The threat comes not just from the EU-India FTA as the EU is currently negotiating or planning to negotiate free trade agreements across Latin America, Africa and Asia.
“Is our memory so short that we have forgotten the situation we were in barely 10 years ago? None of us could get effective HIV treatment because of the stranglehold multinational companies had on medicines. Generic medicines not only brought down prices but led to government programmes across the developing world to provide life-long treatment,” said Loon Gangte of the Delhi Network of Positive People (DNP+). “Now the EU wants to shut down generic production in India through its free trade agreement and send us back in time – when we watched helplessly as our colleagues, friends and families struggled with ill-health and death because some big company and its government decided to put profits before people” he said.
Groups watching the negotiation of the final MDG Outcome Document were alarmed to see the EU and the US protesting the inclusion of language proposed by developing countries to ensure access to medicines. According to Chee Yoke Ling, director of Third World Network, developing countries had proposed a paragraph calling on developed countries "to refrain from adopting any measures or restrictions related to trade and transit that affect the access by developing countries to medicines, especially generic medicines, and medical equipment." This was rejected by the EU and US.
This language was proposed in light of the EU’s seizure of generic medicines on their way from India to Latin America and Africa. Despite worldwide outrage at the seizures, the EU refuses to amend the law that allowed the seizures and is pushing for similar laws in developing countries through its trade agreements. The rejection of this language also comes at a time when the EU along with the US and Japan are secretly negotiating a new trade agreement known as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement or ACTA. Leaked texts of ACTA indicate that a significant push by these countries to increase the enforcement of intellectual property rights across the globe.
These bilateral agreements and ACTA take intellectual property protection well beyond what countries agreed to when they signed the Agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights or TRIPS. Developing and least developed countries are routinely told that they can use so-called TRIPS flexibilities to interpret their obligations under TRIPS to promote access to medicines.
The only reference to the use of TRIPS flexibilities in the MDG document in para 78(t) has been adapted from the UNGASS Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS four years ago. “That was yet another Declaration of commitment by the UN General Assembly in 2006 re-affirming the right of all countries to use these TRIPS flexibilities,” said Shiba Phurailatpam of the Asia Pacific Network of people living with HIV/AIDS (APN+). “In 2007 and 2008 when Thailand used these TRIPS flexibilities to issue compulsory licences for medicines for HIV, heart disease and cancer, they faced a vicious backlash from developed countries. The actions of developed countries show that these are just empty words in international documents” he said.
In fact, the MDG Outcome Document represents an abdication of all responsibility of developed countries in such actions and in pushing trade agreements that threaten access to medicines. Thus, according to the document, “It is for each Government to evaluate the trade-off between the benefits of accepting international rules and commitments and the constraints posed by the loss of policy space.” (para 37) Policy space often given up by developing and least developed countries relates to their ability to produce, import or export generic medicines. The MDG document completely ignores the unequal balance of power between developed and developing countries and places no responsibility on developed countries not to push trade laws and policies that hamper access to medicines.
Access to medicines has been identified in the MDG Outcome Document as essential to the achievement of the goals on child mortality, HIV, malaria, tuberculosis and for the proper functioning and strengthening of health systems. Yet it fails to address the causes for the gap in access to affordable medicines. Even as concerns increase that countries are shying away from commitments to fully fund the achievement of the MDGs grows, the already restricted ability of countries to provide access to generic medicines either by producing these themselves or importing them is in danger of being traded away under growing pressure from developed countries – in particular, the European Union.
People living with HIV are demanding that the EU and India remove all TRIPS-plus provisions from their FTA discussions in Delhi next week if they are serious about their MDG commitments.
For more information, contact
Shiba Phurailatpam, Asia Pacific Network of people living with HIV/AIDS (APN+)
Tel: +66-866000738
Loon Gangte, Delhi Network of positive people (DNP+)
Tel: +91-9871029514
