[Ip-health] news WTO, Fund, Dakar conf.

[Khalil Elouardighi]

The following information originates from the French Foreign
Affairs/International Development Ministry

1) WTO :

- The Trade Ministerial is still planned for November 9-13 in Doha,
irrespective of military actions ongoing in the region.

- 3 declarations/decisions planned for this Trade Ministerial :
    a) the official opening of a new round to take globalization even
further (pushed by rich countries)
    b) the full implementation of the 1994 Agreements and unfulfilled
related commitments (pushed by all)
    c) the interpretation of access to health possibilities under TRIPs
(pushed by poor countries)

!!! It turns out that if poor countries don't give up their current
opposition to the opening of a new negotiation round, then rich countries
will oppose a declaration on access to medicines ("the two declarations are
not separable"), and maybe even the declaration on unfulfilled prior
commitments (e.g. the technology transfer commitments with which the rich
countries sweetened the TRIPs deal to poor countries in 1994).

- About the proposal by poor countries for an interpretation of TRIPs, the
US, the EU and Japan are perfectly aligned on the position that there is no
urgent need for an especially strong interpretative declaration since
poorest countries are not subject to TRIPs before 2006.

- To the proposal by poor countries and civil society to build in WTO a
protection of health from IP, the position is that the health industry is
too powerful for such a "radical" proposal to ever have any chance of making
it (I'm sure people dying of treatable diseases will appreciate their sense
of realpolitik).

- The EU considers that there is no real need for a strongly interpretative
declaration in Doha because the right of poor countries to protect public
health is now "implicitly" clarified. It's interesting to note that the guy
who told us that is a lawyer and that he's in charge of WTO issues at the
international development ministry.

- The UE now denies the Sept 21 non-paper. 'Lamy's position on health/IP is
perfect, it's his subordinates who are too pro-industry', the French
government says (Lamy is a sort of protégé of the French Prime Minister).
However, when asked in what the new non-paper draft will differ from the
first, the only thing which surfaces is that it will feature a mechanism to
supposedly allow for South-South trade of CLed generics (it sounds like some
weirdo cross-border compulsory license which it would be used in cases when
a country like Brazil or India wants to export generics but not have them
marketed on its own territory).

- The US : they're toying with a new counter-proposal for the 52 poor
countries who proposed that Doha declare health measures protected from WTO.
The US want to offer them another 10 years' transition before implementing
TRIPs, plus a 5-year moratorium on generics-related WTO litigation (which
would leave the US perfectly free to extoll unilateral trade sanctions on
those same countries). Clearly, the USG is very concerned about the
unprecedented unity which poor countries are showing on the matter of access
to affordable medicines, and is trying to come up with false irresistible
proposals to break up the group. It was suggested that India might already
be responsive to the new US offer.


2) Global Fund

Three countries who are key members of the Global Fund's board now hold
diametrically opposite positions on HIV treatment access in the Fund from
the positions these countries were taking in Genoa for the announcement of
the Fund. These countries are the United States, the United Kingdom and
Germany.
According to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the reason for this
turnaround is that it is only the more political parts of governments which
can hold pro-access positions, while lower-level government people like
those who are sent to the Fund board meetings have only ties with industry,
and none with voters. Thus, according to the French Foreign Affairs, if the
issue of HIV treatment access is not satisfactorily settled in the Global
Fund's interim board meetings, the matters will shoot up the government
ladder and be settled at Ministerial or Head of State level between the G8
countries.

3) France-UNAIDS Dakar Conference

For those who were interested in that conference : it has been postponed
sine die. Rmor has it the French Health Minister wants to use the $2 million
xonference budget contribution to launch his latest PR stunt : the "Hospital
Treatment Solidarity Network".


Khalil Elouardighi
ACT UP-Paris
+33 1 4929 4475 (ACT UP) - +33 6 1252 8797 (mobile)
http://www.actupp.org
http://www.genericsnow.org