[Ip-health] Fwd: [A2k] massive attack on Brazil's IPR policies

[Michelle Childs]

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Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Volker Grassmuck" <vgrass@rz.hu-berlin.de>
> Date: 24 March 2007 14:04:23 GMT
> To: a2k@lists.essential.org
> Subject: [A2k] massive attack on Brazil's IPR policies
> Reply-To: vgrass@rz.hu-berlin.de
>
> Here is a new consignment of Mr. Kogan's crusade against Brazil (and
> the EU) undermining US-American interests and for strong IPRs as the
> way to Sustainable Development:
>
> Lawrence A. Kogan, Brazil's IP Opportunism Threatens U.S. Private
> Property Rights, (6 Feb 07), apparently forthcoming in: University of
> Miami Inter-American Law Review, Vol. 38:1,
> http://www.itssd.org/Publications/IAL105-II(frompublisher)%5B2%5D.pdf
>
> The Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development
> (ITSSD), Providing an informed, reasoned, and dispassionate voice to
> the global public debate.=AE
>
> Here is the press release on the article in which "Mr. Kogan
> questions whether "these same bandits will strike during the upcoming
> April 2007 EU-US summit, a primary goal of which is to bridge
> transatlantic chasms in IP regulatory law."
> http://www.itssd.org/pdf/TheGreatBrazilianIPRobberyII.pdf
>
> And here are some quotes from the 140 pages paper:
>
> The Government of Brazil, however, has assumed a leadership role in
> international fora by promoting a new but highly controversial global
> framework that calls for the current high technology, knowledge and
> information-based digital era to become `universally accessible,=B4
> `open source,=B4 and essentially free of charge to developing
> countries. Brazil, along with a growing chorus of developing nations,
> activists, and self-proclaimed new social and environmental thinkers,
> has alleged that this new paradigm is predicated upon an expanded
> notion of sustainable development (SD) that eschews strong IPRs.
>
> Besides anti-market, anti-private property and anti-WTO advocates,
> there is also a vocal group of American self-proclaimed
> multilateralists who believe that this is necessary in order to
> prevent the emergence of extreme economic, scientific, technological
> and social disparities and popular backlashes against globalization
> that will serve to threaten international peace and security.
>
> In other words, the `enlightened=B4 notion of sustainable development,
> originally articulated almost twenty years ago, has since been
> effectively hijacked, distorted and propagandized into a negative
> anti-market, anti-private property and anti-WTO doctrine that focuses
> only on the flaws, rather than the strengths, of the established
> international order.
>
> The Government Lula ... actually operated behind the scenes to help
> craft a new version of the 1970=B4s New International Economic Order
> (NIEO) that endeavors to undermine exclusive private property rights
> and the rule of law.
>
> During the past seven years, the Brazilian Government, prodded by
> activists and supported by the WHO, has repeatedly threatened to
> `take=B4 the private IPRs of OECD life science companies operating in
> Brazil (via issuance of compulsory licenses) for an ostensible
> `public use=B4 without paying `just compensation.=B4  ... It is believed,
> however, that Brazilian generic drug makers and corrupt Brazilian
> politicians, rather than the poor and HIV-infected people of Brazil,
> primarily benefit from such intimidation and extortion-like
> activities.
>
> Of even greater concern, however, is the influence that Brazil=B4s
> continued anti-IP activities has had on the thinking of other
> emerging and developing countries, and the impact that it will have
> on future U.S. international competitiveness.
>
> Brazil and other developing countries that have become dissatisfied
> with the TRIPS and WIPO agreements and the American capitalist
> economic model of `risk and reward,=B4 which serves as the basis for
> the current international IP framework, are now employing, with the
> assistance of well-funded global civil society (activist NGOs), a
> strategy known as `regime shifting.=B4
>
> Brazil Actively Promotes a New International Paradigm of `Open
> Source=B4 / `Universal Access=B4 to Knowledge
>
> Brazil=B4s Efforts at the World Intellectual Property Organization
>
> On September 29, 2004, shortly following the commencement of the
> special session, a group of European socialist-minded open source
> advocates and civil society activists submitted their own WIPO
> proposal, otherwise known as the Geneva Declaration on the Future of
> World Intellectual Property Organization.
>
> In conclusion, the `open source methods=B4 paradigm provides a highway
> for assembling the anti-private property, anti-IP, antifree market
> and anti-globalization troops to mount a prolonged attack against the
> established international economic and legal order.
>
> BRAZIL MUST STOP UNDERMINING U.S. PRIVATE
> PROPERTY RIGHTS
>
> While it may be understandable that a lack of natural and/or human
> capital resources may give rise to a national sense of inadequacy,
> insecurity, and urgency, such feelings, if unchecked, could
> nevertheless devolve into something much more harmful.  ... However,
> such practices should neither continue nor be justified forever. Once
> developing countries rise to become emerging economies, such as
> Brazil, they must grow up and evolve!
>
>
> Volker
>
> --
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>    home:            http://waste.informatik.hu-berlin.de/Grassmuck
>
>
>
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Michelle Childs
michelle.childs@cptech.org