Clionton's speech at WTO

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

>From Treatment Access

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REMARKS BY PRESIDENT CLINTON
December 1, 1999

Luncheon in Honor of Ministers Attending the Meetings of the World Trade
Organization, The Four Seasons Hotel, Seattle, Washington


(...) And I will say this. I do believe, after the Uruguay Round, when we
set up this system, that we did not pay enough attention to the internal
capacity-building in the developing nations that is necessary to really
play a part in the global economy. And I am prepared to do my part to
rectify that omission.

We also must help these countries avert the health and pollution costs of
the industrial age. We have to help them use clean technologies that
improve the economy, the environment, and health care at the same time.

And I'll just give one example. Today is World AIDS Day. And today the
USTR, our trade representative, and the Department of Health and Human
Services are announcing that they are committed to working together to
make sure that our intellectual property policy is flexible enough to
respond to legitimate public health crises.

Intellectual property protections are very important in a modern economy,
but when HIV and AIDS epidemics are involved, and like serious health-care
crises, the United States will henceforward implement its health care and
trade policies in a manner that ensures that people in the poorest
countries won't have to go without medicine they so desperately need. I
hope this will help South Africa and many other countries that we are
committed to support in this regard.

(...)

Moderators'note : full text of President Clinton's remark is available at
http://www.hivnet.ch:8000/topics/treatment-access/viewR?648