[Ip-health] Guardian op-ed on Doha, AIDS, and the USG counterattack

[Mike Palmedo]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/globalisation/story/0,7369,994240,00.html

*New lords of Africa*

Global protests did help poor countries over drugs and Aids. But the
counterattack has begun

*Saskia Sassen
Wednesday July 9, 2003
The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk>*

<snip>

One might say that Africa is special - that is, especially vulnerable -
when it is horsetrading with imperial warlords. But we see similarly
crafted fine print if we go digging into some of the WTO agreements that
supposedly are victories for the interests of people in the global
south. It also tells us something about why aid for Aids might be the
one item in the horsetrading that might actually bring benefits to
Africa - and it has nothing to do with the noblesse oblige of imperial
warlords.

Every time countries of the global south have politically organised to
see some of their interests reflected in the WTO declarations, the work
of elaborating the details takes a peculiar turn. Sheer power trumps
politics. The only time that politics can trump sheer power is when
larger sectors of global civil society get involved in the fray, and do
so with very well-defined goals in mind. Dissecting the case of the WTO
Doha declaration illuminates each of these issues.

Global south countries did organise themselves effectively at the Doha
meetings to resist some of the more damaging resolutions proposed by the
global north. They succeeded in introducing the notion of options to
override patents on pharmaceuticals. In the context of WTO and
intellectual property rights this is almost subversive of global
capitalism and "morally" wrong because it will damage the public
collective interest of both poor and rich in supporting costly research.
This was an important victory, especially since countries such as
Brazil, India and Jordan have formidable pharmaceutical capabilities and
are able generically to produce many of the drugs now under patent.

There was a second victory for the global south at the meeting. The WTO
recognised that some of the poorer countries lack the resources to
produce these medicines. Paragraph 6 of the Doha declaration is quite
clear on this. These were the headlines.

But the horsetrading started soon after. the WTO designed a list of
"approved diseases" that justify overriding patents on pharmaceuticals
crucial for countries lacking the capabilities for generic production.
The list turns out to exclude just about all major diseases for which
the global north firms have developed medicines. Left on the list are
mostly diseases for which these firms have not - one is tempted to
insert "bothered to" - develop medicines or for which treatment is so
old as to be off-patent. Dr Mary Moran of M=E9dicins Sans Fronti=E8res
reports that almost all of the major causes of mortality and morbidity
in Africa for which patented western drugs exist have been excluded from
the list of drugs poor countries can acquire outside the intellectual
property rights framework.

There is one exception to these defeats: drugs for treating HIV/Aids.
There are two important political lessons to be learnt from this case.
Worldwide NGO mobilisation played a crucial role in making the large
pharmaceuticals desist in their efforts to prevent poor countries from
importing the far cheaper generically produced HIV/Aids drugs. What
matters politically is that global protests by civil society helped poor
countries get what they needed from the most powerful countries in the
WTO: overriding the patents of Aids treatments held by the most powerful
corporations in the world. This success is particularly significant as
it is one of the few serious diseases that were not eliminated from the
list.

The second lesson is that warlords will not simply leave it at this. The
latest war the US is now preparing is a major attack on the WTO itself:
they don't want it any more. Another attack is targeted against
"progressive" NGOs and their growing influence. Two components
illustrate the matter. The American Enterprise Institute, an influential
thinktank closely associated with the Bush administration, launched the
attack with a conference in Washington co-sponsored by the Australian
rightwing thinktank, the Institute of Public Affairs. At least 42 senior
representatives of the Bush administration attended. Secondly, the US
Agency for International Development is now moving to grant more
contracts to private firms instead of NGOs.

<snip>