[corp-focus] The Two Faces of George Bush in Africa

[Robert Weissman]

The Two Faces of George Bush in Africa
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

President Bush is doing a barnstorming tour of Africa to call attention
to his administration's commitment to addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic
on the continent.

One problem: He's simultaneously trying to impose on African countries
enhanced patent protections that would undermine their ability to gain
access to affordable medicines.

(Actually, there are lots of problems -- denial of debt relief, water
privatization, insistence on the failed IMF "structural adjustment
model," and much more -- but those are topics for another day.)

The administration has just commenced free trade agreement negotiations
with the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), which consists of South
Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland.

Among the key U.S negotiating aims, announced U.S. Trade Representative
Robert Zoellick, is to "establish standards that reflect a standard of
[patent] protection similar to that found in U.S. law and that build on
the foundations established in the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related
Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS Agreement)."

Pushing for equivalent patent standards in Africa will severely limit
countries' ability to take appropriate measures to address HIV/AIDS and
other serious health problems.

It also happens to run contrary to repeated U.S. promises.

An Executive Order promulgated by President Clinton but kept in effect
by Bush first established the principle that the U.S. would not ask
African countries to provide patent protections beyond those required by
TRIPS.

In 2001, all of the WTO countries, including the United States, agreed
on the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health. The
Declaration affirmed that the TRIPS Agreement "can and should be
interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO members' right
to protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to
medicines for all." The Declaration emphasized the flexibilities
inherent in TRIPS and countries' right to use them to the fullest extent
possible. "We reaffirm the right of WTO members to use, to the full, the
provisions in the TRIPS Agreement, which provide flexibility for this
purpose," the declaration states. The U.S. goal in Southern Africa is to
force countries to sacrifice these flexibilities.

The Trade Act of 2002, which gave the President fast-track trade
negotiating authority for the U.S.-SACU negotiations, as well as for
other free trade deals, specifically establishes respect for the Doha
Declaration as a principal negotiating objective of the United States in
trade negotiations with other nations.

To all that, the Bush administration has opted for the Emily Latella
approach: Never mind.

If other U.S. free trade agreements are any indication, the U.S. will
push in its negotiations for a wide range of patent hyperprotections.
These will be cloaked in technical language that won't mean much to most
people, but will have enormous consequences for healthcare delivery in Africa.

To take just one example. TRIPS provides countries with complete freedom
to determine the grounds for granting a compulsory license (authorizing
price-lowering generic competition while a product is still on patent).
Several U.S. free trade agreements have limited compulsory licensing to
a very restricted set of cases, making it extremely difficult to
undertake compulsory licensing in the private sector. That means
non-governmental aid agencies, private insurers and private employers,
among others, will not be able to purchase and distribute lower-priced
generic versions of AIDS and other essential medications, until patents
expire. That, in turn, will translate into fewer people treated.

For one of the SACU member countries, the stakes are higher still.
Lesotho is a least-developed country. The Doha Declaration stipulated
that least-developed countries do not need to enforce pharmaceutical
patent protections whatsoever until 2016.

The Southern African region suffers from the highest rates of HIV
infection in the world.  "National adult HIV prevalence has risen higher
than thought possible, exceeding 30 percent" in much of the region,
notes UNAIDS. HIV prevalence rates are 38.8 percent in Botswana, 31
percent in Lesotho, and 33.4 percent in Swaziland. South Africa has the
world's largest population of people with HIV/AIDS.

Bush's AIDS initiative recognizes the imperative of treatment for people
with HIV/AIDS. Treatment is expensive, but massive savings are available
through use of generic medicines and reaping the benefits of generic
competition. Indeed, it will not be practicable for poor countries to
provide treatment, or for donors to support treatment efforts, unless
lower-priced medicines -- only obtainable through generic competition --
are used.

Yet the intellectual property measures likely included in a
U.S.-Southern Africa Free Trade Agreement will work to delay the entry
of generics, and defer the day when consumers and procurement agencies
can reap the benefits of generic competition.

This threatens to impede dramatically the effort to provide treatment to
people with life-threatening HIV/AIDS, as well as other diseases, with
deadly consequence for millions.

Offering a simple solution to these problems, Doctors Without
Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres, Oxfam, Africa Action, Health GAP,
Consumer Project on Technology, Global AIDS Alliance, ACT-UP Paris and
Essential Action have called on the administration to exclude
intellectual property from the U.S.-SACU negotiations.

The Bush administration has a simple choice: Heed their paymasters in
the brand-name pharmaceutical industry, or deliver on their commitment
to provide treatment to two million people with HIV/AIDS. They can't do both.


Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
Reporter, http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com. Robert Weissman is
editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor,
http://www.multinationalmonitor.org, and co-director of Essential
Action, a corporate accountability group. They are co-authors of
Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on
Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press; http://www.corporatepredators.org).

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

This article is posted at: http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2003/000156.html