[Ip-health] Bob Zoellick and medicine patents in poor countries: The Huffington Post

[James Packard Love]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/bob-zoellick-and-
medicine_b_49929.html

Bob Zoellick and medicine patents in poor countries: The Huffington Post
James Love, May 30, 2007

First the good, then the bad, and then: what's next?

Good Bob

When Bob Zoellick was appointed George W. Bush's choice for United
States Trade Representative (USTR), public health groups, like ours,
were concerned. Would Zoellick retain USTR's very new policy
(announced by President Clinton on December 1, 1999, at the chaotic
Seattle WTO ministerial) to consider the impact of trade policy and
medical patents on public health in developing countries?

Or, as many expected, would he reverse policy and turn USTR back over
to big pharma, and use the agency as a club to push for tougher rules
on patents and other intellectual property protections on medicines.

Zoellick surprised most people by announcing he would retain the
newer public-health friendly approach, and also persuaded George W.
Bush to keep intact Executive Order 13155, which President Clinton
had issued a year earlier (May 10, 2000), prohibiting federal
employees from seeking "TRIPS Plus" intellectual property protections
in sub-Saharan Africa, when it interfered with access to treatments
for AIDS. But this was not all.

Bill Clinton had actually filed a WTO case against Brazil in January
2001, days before he left office, over Brazil's efforts to use
compulsory licensing of patents to promote local production of AIDS
drugs. The case was very controversial, and the subject to criticism
by activists, and the subject of Tina Rosenberg's influential New
York Times account of AIDS treatment in Brazil. Zoellick dropped the
case, after a (secret) deal with Brazil to consult with the U.S.
before issuing such licenses.[1]

In November 2001, resisting enormous pressure from pharmaceutical
CEOs, Zoellick signed on to the historic and much praised Doha
Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health. Among other things, this
declaration declared:

<blockquote>
     We agree that the TRIPS Agreement does not and should not
prevent members from taking measures to protect public health.
Accordingly, while reiterating our commitment to the TRIPS Agreement,
we affirm that the 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.

     In this connection, we reaffirm the right of WTO members to use,
to the full, the provisions in the TRIPS Agreement, which provide
flexibility for this purpose.
</blockquote>

Bad Bob

Big pharma was shaken by Zoellick's first year as USTR. By early
2002, things had changed. With regular meetings with Rove and Josh
Bolten, the pharma companies we able to closely dictate USTR policy
on a number of issues. By the end of 2002 USTR was receiving in some
cases, hourly phone calls from the White House on negotiations over
how to implement the 2001 agreement. The results were not pretty. But
from our perspective, it seemed as though the problem was the White
House, and in particular Rove and Bolten, and not Zoellick.

In any event, Zoellick devised a new and highly effective way to push
higher IPR rules for developing countries -- they were put into
bilateral agreements where the poor countries had almost now power to
resist. Zoellick the technocrat, was worse than many ideologies, in
terms of the impact. In this case, competence was not a good thing.

Zoellick then moved on, and the next two USTR chiefs were
increasingly worst than Zoellick on these issues.

All of this pushed poor countries in ways that make a mockery of the
promises the U.S. made in 2001, at Doha.

What's next?

The World Bank is supposed to be an advocate for the poor. Under
Wolfowitz, as under his predecessor, the Bank took in pharmaceutical
industry personnel to deal with sensitive procurement and
pharmaceutical policy issues, with almost no conflict of interest
protections. But Wolfowitz did not completely prevent the World Bank
from doing the right thing. The record was mixed.

Zoellick comes at a time when the World Bank is being asked to
represent the poor in debates over the role of intellectual property
protection and development. He doesn't like big pharma, but he has
been a team player on many occasions, so it will be interesting to
see what he does with his new job, with his benefactor leaving office
January 2009.

I hope we see Good Bob, and not Bad Bob.

-----Footnote----
[1] Brazil has never used this provision in its patent law. This year
Brazil issued it's first compulsory license on an AIDS drug, under a
different part of their law.


----------------------------------------------
James Packard Love
Knowledge Ecology International
mailto:james.love@keionline.org
tel. +1.202.332.2670 / U.S. mobile+1.202.361.3040, Geneva mobile
+41.76.413.6584

"If everyone thinks the same: No one thinks." Bill Walton"