A controversy has emerged in the last few days on statements made by the new World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Dr Margaret Chan on the compulsory licenses issued by the Thai government for the production of three patented drugs. Dr Chan was in Bangok to attend the Prince Mahidol Award Conference 2007 held on 1-2 February 2007. Witnesses noted quite a shocking series of events linked to the event.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
Compulsory patent licensing and local drug manufacturing capacity in Africa
Owoeye OA: Bulletin of the World Health Organization: 10 January 2014
Africa has the highest disease burden in the world and continues to depend on pharmaceutical imports to meet public health needs. As Asian manufacturers of generic medicines begin to operate under a more protectionist intellectual property regime, their ability to manufacture medicines at prices that are affordable to poorer countries is becoming more circumscribed. The Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health gives member states of the World Trade Organization (WTO) the right to adopt legislation permitting the use of patented material without authorization by the patent holder, a provision known as "compulsory licensing". For African countries to take full advantage of compulsory licensing they must develop substantial local manufacturing capacity. Because building manufacturing capacity in each African country is daunting and almost illusory, the author argues that an African free trade area should be developed to serve as a platform not only for the free movement of goods made pursuant to compulsory licences, but also for an economic or financial collaboration towards the development of strong pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity in the continent. Most countries in Africa are in the United Nations list of least developed countries, and this allows them, under WTO law, to refuse to grant patents for pharmaceuticals until 2021. Thus, the author argues that there is a compelling need for African countries to collaborate to build strong pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity in the continent now, while the current flexibilities in international intellectual property law offer considerable benefits.
Concern erupts over WTO system and medicines shipments: TRIPS talks rekindling
New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 2 March 2009
The ambassadors to the World Trade Organization (WTO) from Brazil and India charged that other WTO members had no grounds to block legitimate shipping of generic medicines on the basis of potential intellectual property (IP) rights conflicts in the transit country and said recent cases of doing so in the Netherlands call into question WTO rules. The complaint was supported by seventeen other developing country governments at the recent WTO General Council meeting. The Brazilian ambassador was gravely concerned with the setting of a precedent for extraterritorial enforcement of IP rights. Attempts to extend the rights granted by patents beyond national borders have critical systemic implications, he said. Furthermore, extraterritorial enforcement of patent rights violates a nation’s sovereign right to take measures to protect its public health, including access to medicines.
Concerns voiced at Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Council over seizure of drugs
Shashikant S: Third World Network, 16 June 2009
The repeated practice of European Community (EC) customs officials seizing shipments of medicines while in transit to developing countries on grounds of alleged intellectual property violations has once again come under sharp criticism in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Protest by developing countries came at a formal session of the TRIPS Council on 8 June. The developing countries expressed concern over the European Union's (EU) commitment to the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health and the flexibilities inscribed in the TRIPS Agreement. They said that the EU was confusing legitimate generic medicines with counterfeit fakes. Furthermore, the EU was also undermining poor countries' ability to obtain cheaper generic medicines. India called upon the EC to urgently review their legislation and the actions of their national authorities and bring them in conformity with the letter and spirit of the TRIPS Agreement, the rules-based WTO system and the Doha Ministerial Declaration on Public Health.
Conclusions and outcomes from SATUCC seminars during the 16th Southern African Civil Society Forum
SATUCC: Botswana, August 2020
The 16th Southern African Civil Society Forum (CSF) was held remotely in late August due to the challenges posed by COVID-19. In seminars at the forum hosted by SATUCC, and with evidence presented from studies implemented for SATUCC, it was noted that the pandemic has amplified a number of challenges that workers were already facing before COVID-19, such as increase of insecure and informal work, lack of social protection and rising unemployment, exacerbating poverty and inequalities. Youth were found to be more vulnerable due to high youth working poverty rates and because the youth are over-represented in vulnerable and informal employment. Young women are facing an increasing double burden to manage both paid work and unpaid care and household work due to widespread school closures. The sessions identified that trade unions should be actively involved in the formulation and implementation of responses to COVID-19 at both national and regional level and that the issues facing workers should be addressed in social dialogue and in the collective bargaining agreements. Trade unions should be pro-active in bringing alternative proposals for building sustainable economies after the pandemic.
Conference may boost WIPO mandate on public health and traditional knowledge
Mara K and New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 15 July 2009
A conference at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), held on 13 and 14 July, explored and clarified the connection between its work and several major public policy issues, ending with a look at public health and food security. The meeting addressed the issue of traditional knowledge. The ‘African renaissance can only be borne on the role of indigenous knowledge systems,’ said Yonah Seleti, director general of South Africa’s Department of Science and Technology. The current intellectual property system fails to protect the knowledge of indigenous people, he said, highlighting his office’s ‘farmer to pharma challenge’, which is intended to unlock the value in biodiversity and traditional medicines. But this means that intellectual property (IP) must be seen as having environmental and social benefits, as well as economic ones. Collaborative research between traditional knowledge and modern medicine can yield great public health benefits, but IP agreements must find ways to protect traditional knowledge.
Confronting uneven and combined development theory
Bond P, Desai A, Ngwane T: 17 January 2012
This paper describes the contemporary contours of protest in South Africa, and the dominance of the Tripartite Alliance and its embrace of neoliberal policies. It discusses the development of a strategic impasse among South African social movements. The authors present and critique several theoretically informed alternative routes out of or around the apparent cul-de-sac. They pose the strategic questions for an agency-centred South African left.
Construction health and safety in South Africa: Status and recommendations
Construction Industry Development Board: June 2009
Construction health and safety has long been the focus of attention of many industry stakeholders and role-players in South Africa, and while it is acknowledged that many industry associations and professional societies, contracting organisations and others have made significant efforts to improve health and safety within the construction industry, overall, construction health and safety is not improving significantly. Notably, construction continues to contribute a disproportionate number of fatalities and injuries, and there continues to be a high level of non-compliance with the health and safety regulations in South Africa. Against this context, the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) has undertaken this report on the status of construction health and safety in South Africa, so as to provide a context for the efforts and actions of industry stakeholders and role-players in improving construction health and safety – including those of the CIDB.
Contagion, liberalisation, and the optimal structure of globalisation
Stiglitz JE: Journal of Globalization and Development 1(2): Article 2, 2010
Advocates of capital market liberalisation argue that it leads to greater stability, as countries faced with a negative shock borrow from the rest of the world, allowing cross-country smoothing. However, the author of this paper argues that there is considerable evidence against this conclusion. He explores in detail the ways in which market integration can exacerbate contagion, whereby a failure in one country can more easily spread to others. The author examines the conditions under which such adverse effects overwhelm the putative positive effects, illustrating how capital controls can be welfare enhancing, reducing the risk of adverse effects from contagion. This paper is intended to provide an analytic framework within which policy makers can begin to address broader questions of optimal economic architectures.
Copenhagen Accord Draft Agreement
Delegates at United Nations Climate Change Conference: 19 December 2009
Leaders of the industrialised nations that attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December 2009 have produced a revised draft agreement, which they hope will break a deadlock between rich and developing countries that threatens to scuttle the talks. The new draft has stronger emission targets, more robust language supporting poverty eradication and clarifies the importance of the science of climate change in the accord. It also recognises the equal right of all nations to ‘access to atmospheric space.’ The accord states that only developing countries that accept financial support for their reduction projects have to accept international monitoring and verification of their reductions. In the draft, all nations would agree to cut emissions globally by 50% below 1990 levels as. Industrialised countries would agree to reduce their emissions ‘individually or jointly’ by 80% by 2050. The draft accord also commits developing countries to emission reductions, but only in the context of future development.