[Ip-health] Experts suspect Cotonou Declaration another attempt by developed nations to push counterfeit agenda

[Gopa Kumar]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
*xperts suspect Cotonou Declaration another attempt by developed nations to
push counterfeit agenda
Tuesday, November 03, 2009 08:00 IST
Ramesh Shankar, Mumbai

In what is being termed as yet another attempt by the developed countries t=
o
garner political support to legitimise and legally accommodate Internationa=
l
Medical Products Anti counterfeit Taskforce (IMPACT) within the WHO
framework, the Chirac Foundation=92s Cotonou Declaration on Fake Medicines =
has
recently declared manufacturing and marketing of counterfeit medicines as a
crime and a breach of peace.

The declaration, adopted in a ceremony held at the Cotonou International
Conference Centre, Benin, further states that that the international traffi=
c
of counterfeit medicines seriously compromises peaceful relations between
states. It was signed by the Honour Committee members of the Chirac
Foundation=92s (established and headed by former French President Jacques
Chirac) international mobilisation campaign against the traffic of falsifie=
d
medicines.

Experts in the field view this development as yet another attempt by the
developed countries to accommodate IMPACT within the WHO framework.
Developing countries had opposed a resolution endorsing the IMPACT, a
developed country IP enforcement initiative, in the World Health Assembly
2008 and the WHO Executive Board (EB) Meeting 2009. As a result of this
opposition, WHO had decided to drop the resolution on IMPACT in the 2009
WHA. The DG also expressed the willingness to drop the term counterfeit in
the WHO Medium Term Strategy document and the budget. Recently, the WHO
South East Asia Regional Office passed a resolution stressing the need to
separate issues related to intellectual property enforcement from the
safety, quality and efficacy of medicines.

The discussion on counterfeit medicines in WHA 2009 is postponed to WHA
2010. Against this background, the Cotonou Declaration's initiation to
organize global conference aimed at establishing the basis of an
International Convention to battle counterfeit medication gaining
importance. This conference is expected to be used to push the anti
counterfeit agenda in WHO, experts say.

Currently, there is no WHA resolution, which recognizes either WHO as the
Secretariat of IMPACT or the work of IMPACT. The declaration endorses the
approach of IMPACT without mentioning it directly, experts said and added
that the declaration elevates the issue of counterfeit medicines -
essentially an intellectual property issue-- as breach of peace, which
compromises peaceful relations between states. This attempts to bring the
issue within the jurisdiction of the UN Security Council.

According to Article 39 of the UN Charter, =93The Security Council shall
determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or
act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures
shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restor=
e
international peace and security=94. Article 42 of the UN Charter empowers =
UN
Security Council to authorize the use of force.

Experts are of the view that there are many similarities between the
campaign and IMPACT. Firstly, the declaration=92s endorsement for an
international convention on counterfeit medicine originally appeared in the
Rome Declaration 2006 adopted in the joint WHO-IFPMA workshop, which
launched IMPACT.

Another striking similarity is in the approach of the campaign and IMPACT.
The campaign is advocating a strict legal framework, wherein the different
actors of the health industry (pharmacists, their associations,
laboratories) as well as law enforcement and customs officials can act in a
coordinated manner. This is an approach proposed by IMPACT and both do not
address the root cause of the trade in medicines, which compromises quality=
,
safety and efficacy i.e. high prices and aggressive medicine promotion
strategies.

Both IMPACT and the declaration use the word counterfeit which conflates an
essentially intellectual property issue with safety and quality of
medicines. Three persons who work with IMPACT are members of the patronage
committee of the international mobilisation campaign.
http://www.pharmabiz.com/article/detnews.asp?articleid=3D52414&sectionid=3D=
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