HEALTH: UN Calls for Special Regime for Medicines

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Aug 8 2001 (IPS) - No international agreement should prohibit policies that ensure access to medicine at affordable prices, says a study presented to the United Nations Sub-Commission on Human Rights Tuesday.

The report by jurists J. Oloka-Onyango of Uganda and Deepika Udagama of Sri Lanka provides new arguments for the debate on the relationship between human rights and the intellectual property rights that protect pharmaceutical patents.

A large number of developing countries are questioning certain aspects of the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Agreement (TRIPS) that protect patent-holding laboratories to the detriment of public health.

TRIPS is one of the most heavily criticised treaties of the legal framework that gave rise in 1995 to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the international regulator of free trade rules.

Trade negotiators in Geneva, the headquarters of the WTO, say TRIPS will become the target of an offensive by developing nations, especially from Africa, at the WTO ministerial conference to be held in Qatar in November.

Humanitarian groups like Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders maintain that the shortfalls of TRIPS have been highlighted by the lack of affordable medicine for tackling leading killers like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in African countries.

The authors of the UN report recommend that international accords be allowed to “establish a sui generis regime of protection in the area of pharmaceuticals, given their critical relationship to the full enjoyment of human rights.”

That would “ensure that the critical components of a human rights perspective are taken into account, while at the same time moving away from a situation of monopoly rights in such a crucial area of human existence,” state Oloka-Onyango and Udagama.

The Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights is made up of 26 independent experts designated by UN member governments to advise the Human Rights Commission, the UN’s top human rights body.

The report by Oloka-Onyango and Udagama states that “it is quite clear that the issue” of the impact of globalisation on the full enjoyment of human rights “should remain of concern to the human rights community in general and to the Sub-Commission in particular.”

The authors also say “it is becoming increasingly clear that the major institutions involved with the process of globalisation have also taken on the issue.

“Those efforts deserve commendation and support to the extent that they will assist in ensuring that the human rights framework is incorporated as part and parcel of these processes,” they add.

The special rapporteurs say they are “eager to ensure that all those concerned with the processes of globalisation and their varied impacts move away from policies that are not rooted in a perspective that gives human rights pride of place.”

The current system of regulation of the international economy has dedicated little space or time to human rights and other social values, state Oloka-Onyango and Udagama.

“Until recently, there has been a marked reluctance on the part of many institutions that play a significant role in the global economy, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the WTO, to engage in an extended discussion on the issue.”

The authors argue that unlike the rest of the treaties agreed in the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade talks that gave birth to the WTO, the TRIPS negotiations were not focusing chiefly on the liberalisation of trade. “Rather, they were about more protection and tighter control.”

Given the fact that transnational companies possess the lion’s share of intellectual property rights, it is clear that the key objective of the negotiations was to strengthen the power of large corporations, they maintain.

“The danger is that such monopoly control can be given higher priority than ensuring the progressive realisation of the rights to health, food, access to information, and even the right to education,” warn Oloka-Onyango and Udagama.

The report ends with a call to set up a framework aimed at bringing the policies and operations of multilateral institutions closer into line with basic human rights standards.

But multilateral institutions, the WTO and UN agencies whose work is closely related to the problems arising from the globalisation process must all take part in that task, the authors add, while calling for the active participation of civil society, the academic community and UN member states as well.