“Just as the world is moving towards multi-polarity, so is Asia … The economic fragmentation of the region and the competitive pursuit of security interests may well consign the Asian Century into a brief interlude rather than a millennial transformation”. Photo credit: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

By Shyam Saran
NEW DELHI, Jun 1 2015 (IPS)

It has been apparent for some time that we are in the midst of a historic shift of the centre of gravity of the global economy from the trans-Atlantic to what is now becoming known as the Indo-Pacific.  

This is an emerging centre of economic dynamism and comprises what was earlier confined to the Asia-Pacific but now includes the South Asian region as well.

This is a region which now accounts for nearly 40 percent of world gross domestic product (GDP), which is likely to rise to 50 percent or more by 2050.  Its share of world trade is now 30 percent and growing.

Shyam Saran

This year, the region has become the largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI), surpassing the European Union (EU) and the United States. China has been the main driver of this historic shift, but other Asian economies have also made significant contributions.

As the Chinese economy begins to slow, India shows promise of regaining an accelerated growth trajectory under a new and decisive political leadership. This will help extend the scale and direction of this shift. Its geopolitical consequences will be profound.

It must be recognised that the economic transformation of Asia, in particular the spectacular growth of China, has been enabled by an unusually extended and liberal global economic environment, underpinned by the faith in globalisation and open markets.

It has also been enabled by a U.S.-led security architecture in the region which kept in check, though did not resolve, the long-standing political fault lines and regional conflicts over competing territorial claims and unresolved disputes.

This relatively benign and supportive economic and security environment is in danger of unravelling precisely at a time when the situation in the region is becoming more complex and challenging.  Paradoxically, this is partly a consequence of the very success of the region in achieving relative economic prosperity.“The danger is that instead of an inclusive and regionally integrated Asia, we may end up with exclusive and competing clusters, moving at different speeds, with different norms and standards. This may well undermine the very basis of Asia’s economic dynamism”

We are witnessing new trends in the region which, unless managed with prudence and foresight, may well sour the prospects of an Asian Century.

The relatively open and liberal trade and investment regime, in particular access to the large consuming markets of the United States, European Union and Japan, is now under serious threat.

Protectionist trends are already visible in these advanced economies as they struggle with prolonged economic stagnation which is the fall-out of the global financial and economic crisis of 2007-2008.

Instead of the consolidation and expansion of the open and inclusive economic architecture that had hitherto been the hallmark of the regional and global economy, we are witnessing its steady fragmentation.

In the Indo-Pacific region, there are competing regional trade arrangements and investment regimes, with no clarity on the contours of a new and emerging economic architecture.

The United States is spearheading its Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which will include some Asian economies, but not India and China.

China has countered by proposing a free trade area encompassing the current Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) membership.  This will include China and the United States but not India and some of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) economies.

The Regional Cooperation Economic Partnership (RCEP) would include all ASEAN countries plus China, Japan, Republic of Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand, but not the United States.

And finally, there is the East Asia Summit process (EAS) which includes all the above-mentioned countries but also the United States and Russia.

The danger is that instead of an inclusive and regionally integrated Asia, we may end up with exclusive and competing clusters, moving at different speeds, with different norms and standards.  This may well undermine the very basis of Asia’s economic dynamism.

In the security field, too, we are witnessing a growing salience of inter-state tensions and competitive military build-up.

The U.S.-led security architecture remains in place formally but its erstwhile predominance is diminished.

The gap between the military capabilities of China and the United State is closing steadily. As China’s security footprint expands beyond its shores, it will inevitably intersect with the existing deployment of the forces of the United States and its allies and partners.

Faced with an increasingly uncertain security environment and threatened by a more insistent assertion of territorial claims by China, the countries of the region, including Japan, Republic of Korea, members of ASEAN, Australia and India are building up their own defences, in particular maritime capabilities, and this itself is escalating tensions.

There is as yet no emerging regional security architecture which could help manage inter-state tensions in the region. This includes the growing possibilities of confrontation between the United States and China.

In the absence of such a regional security architecture, based on a broad political consensus and a mutually acceptable Code of Conduct, the region may well witness a heightening of tension and even conflict.  These developments would inevitably and adversely impact on the dense network of trade and investment relations that bind the countries of the region together and erode the very basis of their prosperity.

In this context, mention may be made of the Chinese One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative which seeks to deploy China’s surplus capital to build a vast network of transport and infrastructural links not only across the Indo-Pacific but also straddling the Eurasian landmass.

The newly established Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) initiated and led by China would become a key financing instrument for the OBOR.  China has also recently come out with a new Defence White Paper, which puts forward a new strategy of Open Seas, shifting the emphasis from coastal and near sea defence to an expanding naval presence which matches China’s growing global profile and world-wide location of Chinese-controlled economic assets.

While China’s investment in regional infrastructure in Asia may be welcome, it will inevitably be accompanied by a security dimension which may heighten anxieties among countries in the Asian region and beyond.

It is apparent from the above analysis that it is no longer possible for any major power in the Indo-Pacific to unilaterally seek a position of overweening economic dominance or military pre-eminence of the kind that the United States enjoyed over much of the post-Second World War period.

Just as the world is moving towards multi-polarity, so is Asia.  It is now home to a cluster of major powers with significant economic and security capabilities and interests. The only practical means of avoiding a unilateral and potentially destructive pursuit of economic and security interests would be to put in place an inclusive economic architecture underpinned  by a similarly inclusive security architecture which provides mutual reassurance and shared opportunities for promoting prosperity.

The economic fragmentation of the region and the competitive pursuit of security interests may well consign the Asian Century into a brief interlude rather than a millennial transformation. (END/COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

President Barack Obama watches archers on horseback demonstrate their skills at the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo, Japan, Apr. 24, 2014. Caroline Kennedy, U.S. Ambassador to Japan, and her husband Dr. Edwin Schlossberg watch at right. Credit: Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy

By John Feffer
WASHINGTON, Apr 29 2014 (IPS)

President Barack Obama’s recent tour of Asia was an opportunity to reenergise his foreign policy after a series of setbacks in the global arena.

The four countries on the week-long tour — Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and the Philippines – have all been eager to upgrade their relationships with the United States in light of their concerns over Chinese maritime ambitions and an uncertain global economy.Ever since the Obama administration announced its “strategic rebalance” of U.S. foreign policy several years ago, the effort has encountered both domestic and foreign challenges.

But if the president thought that his short pass through Pacific would provide a lift to the much-vaunted U.S. “pivot” to Asia, he soon discovered that the world is not cooperating with his best-laid plans.

Ever since the Obama administration announced its “strategic rebalance” of U.S. foreign policy several years ago, the effort has encountered both domestic and foreign challenges.

At home, budget constraints have prevented the release of sufficient resources to finance a significant Pacific reorientation. Indeed, the threat of a government shutdown over the federal budget forced the president to postpone an earlier version of his Asia trip last October.

At the geopolitical level, meanwhile, the pivot was intended to reduce the liabilities of U.S. involvement in the Middle East. But that region has refused to allow the Pentagon and State Department to shift their attention.

The war in Syria, the collapse of negotiations between Israel and Palestine, the reversal of political fortunes in Egypt, and the ongoing talks with Iran have all continued to demand considerable U.S. focus.

An even greater distraction for the president at the moment is the crisis in Ukraine. Russia has already annexed one part of the country, the peninsula of Crimea. International sanctions have so far failed to discourage Moscow from fanning the flames of conflict in eastern Ukraine.

As Obama prepared to head toward Asia, Polish Defence Minister Tomasz Siemoniak urged the United States to “re-pivot to Europe” in order to bolster its NATO alliances.

Reassuring concerned allies over the potential military actions of a great power was also the expressed purpose of Obama’s trip to Asia. The president provided a good deal of rhetorical and symbolic assurances during his Pacific tour. But the pull of other pressing concerns has turned the “strategic rebalance” into a half-pivot at best.

Last week, Obama did reiterate that Washington would support Tokyo in any conflict over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. But he was also careful not to endorse Japanese sovereignty over the islands that China also claims.

Moreover, the Obama administration has quietly expressed dismay at Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s more provocative actions, such as his visit to Yasukuni shrine and his controversial interpretations of World War II history, which have outraged neighbouring countries.

Obama’s greater emphasis on Asia has failed to repair the relationship between the principle U.S. allies in the region, Japan and South Korea.

Despite some progress in the negotiations, the president was also unable to persuade the Japanese to remove trade barriers necessary for the completion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed trade pact involving 12 countries.

To a certain degree the discussions in Japan were moot, since the president lacks the votes in Congress to achieve “trade promotion authority,” the fast-track authorisation that nearly every trade pact has required for passage.

In South Korea, Obama’s visit was overshadowed by the ferry disaster that has so far left more than 200 dead. North Korea, meanwhile, tried to capitalise on Obama’s trip by ramping up its preparations for a fourth nuclear test.

Both Washington and Seoul have threatened repercussions should the North conduct a test, which would likely demonstrate the viability of its uranium enrichment programme.

But North Korea already endures some of the toughest sanctions in the world. Its decision to flout these warnings is yet more evidence that the Obama administration’s policy of “strategic patience” has failed to address either North Korea’s nuclear programme or any of the country’s underlying security concerns.

The trip to Malaysia reinforced the perception that the Obama administration has not put democracy and human rights front and centre of its foreign policy. In the first trip of a U.S. president to Malaysia in nearly 50 years, Obama did mention democracy in his official speech.

But Malaysia’s potential participation in the TPP and its role in pushing back against the expansion of China’s maritime influence all make the country critical to U.S. role in the Pacific. Obama needs Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s support, not his irritation, so it was left to National Security Advisor Susan Rice to meet with leading oppositionist Anwar Ibrahim.

The one success the administration is touting from this swing through Asia is a new basing agreement with the Philippines, which gives the U.S. military greater flexibility in its access to the country. The Philippine government asked the United States to withdraw from its military bases in 1992.

But the new agreement does not add substantially to the previous two agreements signed by the two countries, the Mutual Defence Treaty and the Visiting Forces Agreement. Even this modest bump-up in cooperation, however, generated sizable demonstrations in Manila over the rotation of U.S. troops in and out of the country.

The enormous panda in the room, of course, is China. Obama and his entourage took pains to emphasise that all of these negotiations and treaties and military upgrades are for the general stability of the region and are not targeted at any particular country.

The Chinese, however, view the Pacific pivot as a form of containment. Behind the scenes, meanwhile, the Pentagon was drafting a set of contingency plans to deal with any possible military moves by China.

“As outlined by Obama and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping last June, the Pacific Ocean is large enough for the development of the two countries, and each side should respect the core interests of the other,” China’s Xinhua news agency observed before issuing a not-so-veiled warning.

“Meanwhile, it’s advisable for the United States not to underestimate China’s determination to defend its territories.”

Obama’s four-country trip did the minimum required to maintain the narrative of a reorientation of U.S. foreign policy to Asia. But distracted by other foreign policy challenges and soon heading into the mid-term election cycle, the president may not be able to return his attentions to the Far East any time soon.

Intellectual property provisions proposed by the United States would extend monopoly powers derived from patents to pharmaceutical companies that sell their medicines abroad. Credit: Bigstock

By Jared Metzker
WASHINGTON, Jul 16 2013 (IPS)

As a new round of talks behind a major proposed free trade area, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), get underway this week, the United States is pushing several developing countries to accept provisions that critics say would make it more difficult for their citizens to access medicine.

“The concern about access to medicine, and that the TPP deal will lead to high health-care costs, is huge,” Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of Citizens Trade Campaign, a fair trade advocacy group based here, told IPS.“TPP is certainly not being written in the interest of small business owners or working people.” -- Arthur Stamoulis of the Citizens Trade Campaign

On Monday, as negotiations for the TPP enter their 18th round, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), a humanitarian organisation, reflected this concern, urged negotiating countries “to remove terms that could block people from accessing affordable medicines, choke off production of generic medicines, and constrain the ability of governments to pass laws in the interest of public health.”

Negotiations for the TPP, which officially started in 2010, are currently being held in Malaysia, and the countries participating include the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Peru, Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Canada and Mexico.

Japan is expected to join at the end of this round, while others have expressed interest in signing on, as well.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative has explained that the purpose of the deal is to “enhance trade and investment among the TPP partner countries, promote innovation, economic growth and development, and support the creation and retention of jobs.”

Yet critics have long warned that the United States appeared to be setting onerous conditions for any agreement, while complaining that the talks have been held in near secrecy, lacking oversight even from the U.S. Congress.

While intellectual property provisions proposed by the United States may be intended to promote innovation, MSF notes that they would extend monopoly powers derived from patents to pharmaceutical companies that sell their medicines abroad.

This means that it would take longer for cheaper generic drugs to come to market in low-income countries, where citizens often struggle to afford basic necessities.

Further, by hamstringing Asian suppliers of generic drugs, the effect of TTP’s restrictive intellectual property provisions could ultimately reverberate beyond the countries involved in the agreement.

“The critically important role that many Asian countries have in supplying both generic medicines and the active pharmaceutical ingredients needed to produce drugs is in jeopardy because of new restrictions proposed in the TPP,” says Judit Rius Sanjuan, U.S. manager of MSF’s Access Campaign.

“The TPP threatens to put a stranglehold on the world’s supply of affordable treatments, with dire consequences for patients, treatment providers, and pharmaceutical producers in developing countries.”

The proposed agreement could facilitate “evergreening” by patent-holding pharmaceutical companies, a term that refers to legal manoeuvres that, when successful, lead to monopoly powers being maintained longer than the 20 years typically allotted by patents.

Imposing these types of new restrictions would run counter to previous international agreements and national legislation under which Washington has pledged to expand access to generic medicines.

Any restriction in access to such medicines would also affect the United States’ own global health goals. Generics are said to make up some 98 percent of the medicines used by PEPFAR, the United States’ flagship anti-HIV/AIDS programme and the world’s largest.

MSF calls the practice of evergreening “abusive”. Further, under a free trade agreement all adhering countries would conform their laws, and the standard promoted by the United States would, the group is warning, do so in a way that would make evergreening more feasible abroad.

Sense of urgency

For the administration of President Barack Obama, there has been a sense of urgency to finish the TPP negotiations by the fall. Some observers have suggested that this could lead countries that would otherwise reject the clauses affecting access to medicine to allow them to remain.

“We are hearing from other negotiating teams that the pressure to finalise this agreement by October is rising,” Sanjuan told IPS during a previous round of negotiations, “and they fear that if there is not more time for substantive discussion, this chapter could stand.”

She also notes that negotiations are being carried out in secret and without input from civil society. Her office became aware of the clauses related to intellectual property and access to medicine only after text of a chapter was leaked to them.

In fact, concerned groups and the media have had extremely limited opportunities to speak with negotiators. Much of the communication has occurred at so-called “stakeholder meetings”, wherein groups are allowed to make brief presentations to certain negotiators and given controlled access to speak face-to-face with them.

IPS recently attended a stakeholder meeting related to another major proposed U.S.-led free trade agreement and was told by multiple delegates that the information they could divulge was very limited.

That lack of transparency is being interpreted by some as a clear indication that the TPP agreement is not being negotiated in the interest of the general public. Indeed, the vast majority of those who have had access to the TPP talks have been representatives of major corporations.

“TPP is certainly not being written in the interest of small business owners or working people,” the Citizens Trade Campaign’s Stamoulis says. Instead, he suggests it will serve the interest of “a small handful of very powerful corporations”.

Stamoulis, too, notes mounting pressure on negotiators to finish the deal by the end of the year.

“They’re definitely going full steam ahead to get this thing done as fast as possible, there’s no doubt about that,” he says.

For her part, Sanjuan recommends that the urgency of those looking to push the agreement through be met by urgency on the part of those who want to avoid restricting medicinal access to poor people.

“The time for negotiators to fix the TPP is now, in this round of talks, before political pressure escalates and a deal that is bad for public health is sealed in the interest of time.”

Civil society opposition here has strengthened against a U.S.-proposed free trade zone that would include some dozen countries around the Pacific Rim.

As negotiators head into a 16th round of talks this week in Singapore, around 400 organisations are urging the U.S. Congress to demand greater transparency in the proceedings.

On Monday, the first day of the negotiations, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), a humanitarian group, called on President Barack Obama’s administration to “end its stall tactics and revise its proposals for what otherwise promises to be the most harmful trade deal ever for access to medicines in developing countries.”Look at who has a seat at the table, with the public shut out and more than 600 corporate lobbyists...

The Singapore talks will extend through Mar. 13. Critics say civil society and other critical stakeholders have been systematically shut out of the negotiations, supplanted by corporate interests.

The proposal, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), currently comprises 11 countries (a 12th, Japan, is also contemplating joining). But the Obama administration has been clear that if passed, the zone would be open-ended in terms of future expansion.

That broad geographical sweep, together with the simultaneous negotiation of a lengthy but highly secretive list of contentious issues not necessarily related to trade, is leading critics to warn that the scope of any pending agreement could negatively impact on nearly half the globe.

And with the Obama administration now saying it wants to wrap up the negotiations by October, some TPP negotiators are reportedly worried that some of the most controversial issues up for discussion are being pushed to the very end in an attempt to “run out the clock”.

According to a new brief released by MSF, U.S. TPP negotiators are pushing for rules that would “enhance patent and data protections for pharmaceutical companies, dismantle public health safeguards enshrined in international law and obstruct price-lowering generic competition for medicines”.

The result could be restrictions on access to affordable generic medicines for “millions” of people.

Judit Rius Sanjuan, U.S. manager for MSF’s Access Campaign, says her office heard that the last time the TPP negotiations included substantive talks on access to medicines was a year ago. At that time, nearly all negotiating partners reportedly rejected a draft chapter on intellectual property rights, which includes the patent provisions.

And while the White House has stated that it would be resubmitting a revised chapter on this issue, Sanjuan says it appears that access to medicines is once again not on the agenda this week in Singapore.

“We are hearing from other negotiating teams that the pressure to finalise this agreement by October is rising, and they fear that if there is not more time for substantive discussion, this chapter could stand,” she told IPS.

“We share the concern that this delay in presenting an alternative text is a U.S. strategy to focus instead on the less controversial chapters and leave behind debate over access to medicines. But doing so would have huge consequences for developing countries.”

In fact, imposing these types of new restrictions would run counter to previous international agreements and national legislation under which Washington has pledged to expand access to generic medicines.

Any restriction in access to such medicines would also affect the United States’ own global health goals. According to Sanjuan, generics make up some 98 percent of the medicines used by PEPFAR, the United States’ flagship anti-HIV/AIDS programme and the world’s largest.

Half the world

Global health wouldn’t be the only sector impacted by the TPP’s passage. Also on Monday, coinciding with the first day of negotiations in Singapore, around 400 groups from a broad range of backgrounds sent an open letter to the U.S. Congress opposing the abnormally secretive way in which negotiations for the trade area have been run.

“This agreement will impact on how trade and investment are conducted in the Pacific Rim for decades, yet the ramifications aren’t fully understood even by people who know about the TPP,” Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of the Washington-based Citizens Trade Campaign, an advocacy group, and an organiser of the letter, told IPS.

“This is an agreement that wouldn’t just affect the economy and sustainability in these 11 countries, but has the potential to impact the economy and environment for literally half the world.”

In lieu of official consultation, the groups are offering recommendations for draft language on issues from environmental standards and human and labour rights to financial regulation and national sovereignty. Yet the central complaint has to do with lack of oversight and transparency.

“We find it troubling that … U.S. negotiators still refuse to inform the American public what they have been proposing,” the letter states. “Shielding not only proposals but agreed-upon texts from public view until after negotiations have concluded and the pact is finalized is not consistent with democratic principles.”

The groups are calling for an opening-up of the talks to both the U.S. Congress and the public at large. They’re also urging lawmakers not to authorise new “fast track” powers that would allow the president to send Congress trade pacts for straight votes without the possibility of amendments.

Free trade advocates tend to suggest that such powers are necessary to get other countries to agree to large-scale trade agreements in the first place, but President Obama had allowed the “fast track” legislation to lapse. On Friday, however, the administration’s new trade policy agenda noted that the president would work with Congress to re-authorise that authority.

The administration has used similar concerns to rationalise the high level of secrecy surrounding the negotiations, saying that greater transparency would upset delicate discussions.

Yet critics point out that draft trade texts at this point in negotiations are often made public, including by the World Trade Organisation. Similar precedent exists from the Free Trade Area of the Americas, the trade zone agreed to in 2001 covering 34 countries, including the United States.

“There’s a real reason why the draft has been kept secret from the U.S. public – Americans wouldn’t support a huge amount of the agenda that the [Obama administration] has been pushing,” Citizens Trade’s Stamoulis says.

“If they were to negotiate an agreement that put human rights ahead of corporate profit, creating more just and sustainable social policy, the TPP could be a tool for incredible good. But if you look at who has a seat at the table, with the public shut out and more than 600 corporate lobbyists included, there is nothing to indicate that’s the deal we’re going to get.”

The 14th round of negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the proposal for a massive free-trade area spearheaded by the United States, got underway here over the weekend.

The talks are slated to last through the week, with another round scheduled before the end of this year.

But while President Barack Obama initially hoped the negotiations would finish before the November U.S. presidential elections, an update report released on Sunday reported only “encouraging headway”.

In a reference that is sure to frustrate many observers – activists and government officials alike – the report, by trade ministers from each of the nine TPP countries, notes “the active consultations with our stakeholders that we have conducted domestically to obtain input as we further developed our negotiating positions”. According to almost universal observation, the TPP negotiations continue under unusually tight secrecy.

“(M)eetings, extensive preparatory work … have significantly narrowed the gaps between us in a wide range of areas,” the report states, warning that negotiators are “continuing work on other issues where progress has been slower.”

Indeed, the top U.S. trade official, Trade Representative Ron Kirk, now says that the talks could drag on through much of next year. Kirk is also warning that some of the most contentious decisions needed for the talks to progress remain outstanding, and will likely only be taken up next year.

Both President Obama and his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, have made increasing U.S. exports central components in their election campaigns, both of which have focused almost exclusively on the state of the U.S. economy, which continues to stutter.

As currently envisaged, the TPP would include at least nine countries – Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the U.S. and Vietnam – with Canada and Mexico expected to be formally included on that list later this year.

Japan, meanwhile, remains a potentially lucrative holdout. While the Japanese government has expressed interest in joining the talks, a chaotic political situation at home, coupled with some staunch opposition to joining the TPP, has led the Japanese to bow out of the current talks.

The start of this round of TPP negotiations coincided with the annual meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, this year held in Vladivostok, Russia. On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the TPP “central to America’s economic vision in Asia”.

That same day, following a meeting with Clinton, Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced that, with multiple outstanding issues remaining to be resolved, both the United States and Malaysia were now looking to wrap up talks on the TPP only by the end of 2013.

The 14th round is also the first negotiations to take place following the end-August meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at which the representatives gathered announced plans to move forward with a China-led Asia-only free-trade area.

While the United States says it hopes China would eventually join the TPP, Beijing is not currently part of the talks. The Asia-only discussions, meanwhile, do not look set to include Washington, but are reportedly actively wooing Japan.

While Trade Representative Kirk has noted that the United States does not “begrudge” the movement towards an Asia-only trade agreement, he has indicated optimism that the TPP talks would conclude before the Asia-only framework gets off the ground – and warns that significant progress needs to be made during the current round of discussions.

Stifling secrecy

Ultimately, what fires both optimism and fierce criticism regarding the TPP is its open-ended nature, with U.S. officials suggesting that new countries could continue to be added to the agreement’s framework down the road.

Already, the countries under the TPP would encompass around a third of international economic productivity, and the possibility of a further expansion leads many critics to warn that the negative aspects of other U.S.-led free-trade agreements – on labour rights, on the environment, on small-scale business and agriculture – could be far more widespread under any eventual TPP agreement.

Advocates are warning that the United States is attempting to impose overly strict interpretations of intellectual property rights and copyright on the rest of the bloc, with a host of incumbent negative impacts on issues from generic medicines to the Internet’s openness. Other provisions would, in certain instances, preference a corporation over a country’s own laws.

The most significant issue, however, supersedes each of these others: the secrecy with which the TPP negotiations have taken place throughout the talks process. Thus, while inklings of the countries’ positions on the varying issues have come to light through brief public statements and leaked documents, the details of how the talks are progressing are known only to the negotiators and the corporations that have been given access to the draft documents.

According to activists, of the 600 advisors that the U.S. negotiators have used surrounding the talks, 84 percent have been corporate interests.

Indeed, not only has there been an ongoing lack of direct civil-society involvement in the TPP process, but progress in the negotiations has been kept secret from even the U.S. Congress. With the start of the 14th round of talks this weekend, a bipartisan letter was sent from Congress to Trade Representative Kirk, insisting “in the strongest terms possible” that Kirk’s office publicise details on what is being discussed, specifically with regards to intellectual property rights.

Members of Congress have sent similar letters to Kirk in recent months, calling for greater openness in the TPP discussions as well as demanding to be allowed access to the negotiations. At least once, such requests have been denied, on the rationale that the issues at stake are too sensitive and complex.

On Sunday, Kirk’s office held a meeting between stakeholders and negotiators – only the second such session in the 14 rounds of talks. According to official figures, participation levels jumped by nearly 50 percent over the previous such session, indicating extremely high interest in the proceedings.

In the event, some 450 registered stakeholders had just three hours in which to interact with negotiators.

“Even when the USTR provides a forum for stakeholder presentations and tables, no negotiator is really willing to engage in a real dialogue with us,” Reshmi Rangnath, with Public Knowledge, a watchdog group, told IPS following the interaction.

“Because the presentations and tables were simultaneous, effectively participating in both was very difficult. It left me wondering how negotiators could listen to relevant presentations and also discuss these issues with those who had set up tables. So, until the process becomes more open, we have no way to really gauge how our input is being received.”

Protesters at the "We Can End AIDS Rally" Hold Up Pill Bottles. Credit: Amanda Wilson/IPS

By Amanda Wilson
WASHINGTON, Jul 26 2012 (IPS)

As the nineteenth International AIDS Conference continued in Washington Tuesday, thousands of protesters marched on the White House with a set of demands to end the epidemic.

At the forefront were calls for an end to free trade deals that protesters argue make vital AIDS medicines unaffordable.

The march comprised a coalition of AIDS advocacy and activist groups organised under the mantra “We Can End AIDS”, and ended with a dramatic display when activists gathered symbols of the fight against AIDS – pill bottles and money – tied them with red ribbons, and threw them in front of the White House.

A growing movement within the international advocacy community and those living with HIV/AIDS argue that free trade deals such as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) – a deal the Barack Obama administration has been negotiating with 10 Pacific nations over the past three years –contain excessively stringent protections for pharmaceutical patents on AIDS drugs.

Lorena Di Giano of the Argentinian Network of Women living with HIV spoke at the rally, saying such free trade agreements “would make access to affordable drugs even more difficult”.

Medicine works, but who owns it?

Anti-retroviral (ARV) medicines are known to reduce the transmission of HIV, yet only one out of every two HIV-positive people are on ARVs worldwide. The number is lower for children, and still lower for people in the developing world. But, protesters say, patent protections do not help get more drugs to more patients, a step they say could dramatically halt the epidemic.

They say patents on drugs imported to developing or middle-income countries could block generic manufacturing, resulting in monopolies and higher prices for vital medications.

This trend, advocates say, will exclude and marginalise HIV-positive patients who do not fit within a narrow market of elite or middle-class consumers in middle-income countries who are increasingly targeted for drug sales.

That could mean bad news for patients in fast-growing, middle-income countries such as India and Brazil, where pharmaceutical companies have launched lawsuits against governments in order to enforce patents and block other manufacturers from producing their drugs.

Protesters say the situation is clear: pharmaceutical companies are suing governments for rights to exercise exclusive IP rights on effective new AIDS drugs, making clinical trials data secret, even as they target expensive new drugs to elites and a growing middle class while leaving the marginalised to fend for themselves, or even die.

Currently, certain free trade deals have some flexibility for countries that prefer not to enforce patents on pharmaceuticals. Under the World Bank’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), those exceptions expire in 2016. Protesters are arguing for their extension.

Brook Baker, a policy analyst and advocate on IP and access to medications with the U.S.-based AIDS advocacy organisation Health GAP, spoke at a panel session of the International AIDS Conference on Tuesday. He said a dramatic fall in prices for some drugs had lulled people into a false sense of security.

“We face a future in which IP protection in the form of data monopolies and patent monopolies stand in our way,” Baker said. “All new drugs are being created under much stricter IP regimes, and they can be two to three or even 10 times more expensive (than generics).”

Baker urged governments to accept recommendations related to IP in a July report issued by the Global Commission on HIV and The Law, an independent high-level legal commission made up of former heads of state and leading legal, human rights and HIV experts.

In its annual report, the commission this year recommended a moratorium on TRIPS patent enforcement on pharmaceutical products. “The HIV epidemic has exposed the serious problems of applying TRIPS to medicines and other pharmaceutical products,” the report notes. “This has implications well beyond HIV, for example, for non-communicable diseases which affect millions in high-, middle- and low-income countries.”

Baker said the need to address the link between patent law, pricing, and access was especially urgent in middle-income countries such as China, India, Brazil, and South Africa, which have 25 percent, or eight million, of all HIV-positive people.

“They (pharmaceutical companies) are interested in selling to the elites and a growing middle class,” Baker said. “If you get a right to exclude competition and you price your medications for the elite,” people are going to be marginalised, he said.

Tahir Amin, an international IP scholar, emphasised that, through a process called “evergreening”, many new patents on drugs are simply patents on slight changes in compounds being passed off as brand new drugs. “It shocks me to think that this is innovation,” he said.

Sarah Zaidi of the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC), based in Thailand, pointed out that the number of free trade agreements had increased from eight in 2001 to 72 in 2012. She said strong IP clauses show the strength of the pharmaceutical patent holders.

“It’s really criminal when you know the evidence around treatment and prevention and the one thing that is keeping you from accessing these drugs are patents,” Zaidi told IPS. “It’s a tragedy.”

In a surprise move this week, the United States says it is pushing for limitations to international copyright norms currently under negotiation surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the massive free trade agreement that could go into effect by the end of the year.

Observers have expressed cautious optimism at the move, but much will still come down to the exact wording of any eventual agreement. For this reason, some are suggesting that long-criticised secrecy surrounding the talks could lead to a weakening of any progressive new stance on copyright.

“We are concerned that, depending on the actual text and its scope and interpretation, the provision in the TPP will restrict fair use and other copyright exceptions and limitations crucial for the progress and access of culture, science, education, and innovation,” five U.S. groups focused on intellectual property rights warned in a release on Tuesday.

In a blog post on its website on Tuesday, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced, “For the first time in any U.S. trade agreement, the United States in proposing a new provision … that will obligate Parties to seek to achieve an appropriate balance in their copyright systems in providing copyright exemptions and limitations.”

Such limits, long urged by scholars and activists, would allow for the “fair use” of copyrighted material for a variety of critical, scholarly or journalistic purposes.

While the USTR describes these principles as “critical aspects of the U.S. copyright system”, watchdogs have noted that such ideals often tend not to be exported via international agreements.

Having been discussed for the past three years, though pushed primarily by the United States, the TPP is being discussed by the nine member states (in addition to three new entrants) during a secretive 13th round of negotiations held this week in San Diego, California. The talks will run through Jul. 10.

With the TPP’s ultimate size being left open, some observers are suggesting that the setup could bring about a new paradigm in the global economy. For many, such stakes only heighten the need for an open, transparent process of negotiations.

In this light, the USTR’s brief blog post, which only contained a single substantive paragraph on the new copyright decision, highlights how little is really known about the copyright discussions – or anything else in the San Diego talks.

Even parts of the U.S. government have been decrying this lack of transparency, including a significant contingent of President Barack Obama’s own party. Last week, four U.S. senators and 132 representatives sent a letter to the USTR, complaining that the U.S. Congress was being left out of the TPP discussions.

Warning against “needless secrecy and over-classification of documents”, the members complain that they have not even received summaries of the U.S. proposals. The letter notes that that “over 600 business interests” have had access to the negotiating text but that “small business, civil society, and other interests … have little meaningful input.”

According to Lori Wallach, with Public Citizen, a Washington-based consumer advocacy group, “The message to President Obama from his own party is clear: Neither the public nor members of Congress will tolerate more of these NAFTA-style trade agreements” – referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Obama campaigned against in 2008 – “and the text of this deal must be released because there are major concerns about where it is heading.”

Over-privileging investors

The letter from Congress also notes troubling rumours that the TPP draft is currently “providing extraordinary investor-state privileges, and restricting access to lifesaving medicines in developing nations”.

These two issues have been of particular interest to observers, both in and out of the United States, in the run-up to the San Diego talks.

“Most of us would agree that the investor-state relations chapter is one of the most egregious parts of the TPP,” Kristin Smith, with the Stop TPP Coalition, told IPS from San Diego, where negotiators have been met daily by hundreds of protesters.

“This gives foreign corporations the right to sue governments when they feel their profits are being hindered by U.S. laws and regulations for things like public health, food safety, worker safety and environmental sustainability. These trade agreements are basically another corporate power tool to prioritise profits over people’s needs.”

Such concerns are being echoed by groups throughout the Asia-Pacific region currently involved in TPP negotiations.

For instance, under these provisions, “tobacco companies could challenge Malaysia’s regulations,” warned the Consumers’ Association of Penang on Thursday. “(E)ven just the prospect of such suits would have a ‘chilling effect’ on regulations.”

Meanwhile, the new U.S. move on copyright limitations would have no impact on the longstanding push to ensure that developing countries are able to maintain access to generic medicines, as this issue is covered under another chapter, on intellectual property.

“The United States … is demanding strict provisions that will reduce access to these affordable medicines,” six Malaysian medical organisations stated on Thursday. “(W)e categorically oppose US demands for longer and stronger patents on medicines and medical technologies that are essential to save Malaysian lives.”

Returning to the primary issue underpinning all such frustrations, the groups continue: “Since the negotiations and texts are secret, Malaysians have no way of knowing what has been agreed to and whether there have been overt and arbitrary breaches of the right to health.”