The negotiations for Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) between the EU and the African Caribbean and Pacific Countries are likely to result in additional layers of intellectual property right protection, at least in the case of the agreement with Cariforum countries. A review of the ongoing negotiations and various draft texts and papers demonstrates an inadequate focus on the need for technological development, promotion of public health, protection of genetic resources and traditional knowledge as well as for ensuring access to knowledge. Considering the level of economic development in ACP countries, the negotiations should not include IP rights as part of the partnership agreement. Instead they should focus on industrial and technological development and aim to address the longstanding issues on various EU policies that have impeded participation of the ACP countries in the value-chain of products, protection of biodiversity and traditional knowledge and the use of TRIPS flexibilities.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
The movement of private capital into developing economies has stalled. Moreover, the flow of private capital is often concentrated, fickle and reversible. Recent research has looked at the potential changes that could be made to the international financial system to influence private investors and lenders and increase the size, regularity and geographical spread of the flow of capital to poor countries. The expansion of private capital flows to developing countries which took place in the early 1990s has not continued. Crises in emerging markets and an increased aversion to risk on the part of investors and bankers have led to developing countries having limited access to sufficient – and sufficiently long-term – flows of private capital. The volatility of these flows to emerging markets has had a grave impact on economic development. This is according to research from the Institute of Development Studies and the University of Oxford’s Queen Elizabeth House.
This new book explores the development policies of Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa. Using a case study approach, the author charts the evolution of South-South cooperation and elaborates on the lessons learnt from traditional forms of external funding. Against the background of the changes in the international system of development cooperation, she also discusses the possibility for convergence or conflict in this transitional phase of the architecture of development cooperation. The emergence of new development partners should be seen as the starting point for the gradual emergence of more comprehensive and balanced international development cooperation, bringing greater gains to aid-dependent economies, including key international development issues such as international tax cooperation, sovereign debt workouts and international economic governance. Emerging economies want to be rule makers, not just rule takers, and increasingly are making their voices heard in international forums. In so doing they are eroding the West's 'monopoly' on developmental issues.
World renowned economist and director of the United Nations (UN) Millennium Project, Jeffrey Sachs, is a harbinger of good news. During his visit to Nairobi in mid-January he emphasised that it was still possible to meet the MDGs before 2015. ‘‘We can still achieve the Millennium Development Goals if proper use is made of the powerful tools at our disposal. But two things are necessary: sustained partnerships between governments and civil society and sustained donor resource input’’. UN secretary general Kofi Annan commissioned the Millennium Project to develop an action plan against poverty under Sachs’ leadership.
A new report published by Public Eye, 'Dirty Diesel' reports that Swiss commodity trading firms exploit lax regulatory standards to sell African customers fuel with high sulfur content that have been banned in Europe. Operating behind the Energy brands, trading companies have a dominant position in the import and distribution of petroleum products in many African countries. Public Eye researchers drew fuel at local pumps in eight countries, viz: Angola, Benin, the Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Senegal and Zambia. The result revealed that the diesel samples contained up to 378 times more sulfur than is permitted in Europe. Furthermore, other toxic substances, such as benzene and polycyclical aromatic hydrocarbons, were also found in concentrations that are also banned in Europe. The 160-page report further indicates that the traders mix up a petrochemical cocktail from refinery products and other components known in the industry as "African Quality". These toxic fuels are reported to be mainly mixed in the ARA-Zone (Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp) where Swiss trading firms have their own refineries and storage facilities. Many West African countries that export high grade crude oil to Europe receive toxic low quality fuel in return. The authors indicate that these fuels investigated contribute to rising air pollution in African cities and jeopardise health, as noted in studies on rapidly increasing levels of air pollution and estimates that by 2030 Africa will have three times as many deaths from traffic-related particle dust than Europe, Japan, and the US combined. Respiratory illnesses are already a major health issue and diesel fumes can cause cancer. The authors argue that African governments need to set and enforce stricter standards. In a petition addressed to Trafigura, Public Eye and its West African partners call on the Geneva-based commodities giant to only sell fuel that meets European standards in all of its global operations, and the UN-Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights adopted in 2011.
In principle, trade and investment agreements are meant to boost economic growth. However, the removal of trade barriers and the provision of investment incentives to attract foreign direct investments may facilitate increased trade in and/or more efficient production of commodities considered harmful to health such as tobacco. The authors analyze existing evidence on trade and investment liberalization and its relationship to tobacco trade in Sub-Saharan African countries. Comparisons are made between tobacco trading patterns and foreign direct investments made by tobacco companies. The authors estimate and compare changes in the Konjunkturforschungsstelle (KOF) Economic Globalization measure, relative price measure and cigarette prices. Preferential regional trade agreements appear to have encouraged the consolidation of cigarette production, which has shaped trading patterns of tobacco leaf. Since 2002, British American Tobacco has invested in tobacco manufacturing facilities in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa strategically located to serve different regions in Africa. Following this, British America Tobacco closed factories in Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, Mauritius and Angola. At the same time, Malawi and Tanzania exported a large percentage of tobacco leaf to European countries. After 2010, there was an increase in tobacco exports from Malawi and Zambia to China, which may be a result of preferential trade agreements the EU and China have with these countries. Economic liberalization has been accompanied by greater cigarette affordability for the countries included in the analysis. Only excise taxes and income are reported by the authors to have an effect on cigarette prices within the region. The results suggest that the changing economic structures of international trade and investment are likely heightening the efficiency and effectiveness of the tobacco industry. As tobacco control advocates consider supply-side tobacco control interventions, the authors suggest that they consider carefully the effects of these economic agreements and whether there are ways to mitigate them.
Campaigners from Southern Africa are bracing for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks to be held in Hong Kong later this month. Some plan to send representatives to the meeting, to protest against unfair trade legislation – particularly as this relates to agriculture. These representatives will include two cotton farmers from Zimbabwe, says Ntando Ndlovu of the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in the capital, Harare.
"The two farmers will be in Hong Kong and make noise using anything, including the beating of drums," she told a gathering of Southern African activists this week at a conference held in the South African commercial hub of Johannesburg. Ndlovu also urged Mozambique and South Africa to send cotton farmers in support of their Zimbabwean counterparts.
This study identified barriers to setting regulation (regulatory chill) and implementing regulation related to nutrition and alcohol as a result of trade or investment dispute measures in South Africa. The work was implemented through semi-structured interviews with 36 policy actors, analysed using thematic analysis. Trade obligations were found to generate a significantly greater anticipatory-type chilling effect on nutrition and alcohol regulation than investment treaty obligations, and investor-state and WTO state-state disputes affected implementation of regulation. No cases were reported of trade threats an investor disputes but there were reported cases of these actors using arguments related to South Africa’s trade obligations to oppose policy action in these areas. The risk of policy action was related to the perceived legitimacy or bias of the dispute system, costs involved in pursuing and capacity to pay costs of regulation/defending disputes and social views and confidence in a successful dispute outcome. The authors observe that currently, South Africa’s trade obligations have a more prominent role in inhibiting nutrition and alcohol regulation than investment treaty-related concerns, but that strategies to protect public health policy space in the context of both international trade and investment treaty and dispute settlement contexts remain important.
This video debate asks: 'Does the TRIPS agreement strike the right balance between the rights of governments and the rights of patent holders?'
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.