[Pharm-policy] RAFI: "Hippocrates, We Have a Problem!" Patent Evils Threaten Public Goods

[James Love]

Rob found this interesting note. Jamie

News Release
Thursday, September 7, 2000

"Hippocrates, We Have a Problem!"
Patent Evils Threaten Public Goods

International agricultural research centres - struggling for survival,
may
find themselves brought up before the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights by the poor they are pledged to help, new RAFI report warns.

An Occasional Paper published today by RAFI (Rural Advancement
Foundation
International) "In Search of Higher Ground" (the full text can be found
at
www.rafi.org) warns that the world's leading international public
science
institutions are in crisis and their inept patent policies and
inexperience with multinational corporations could put them at odds with
those their research is meant to serve.  According to the study, public
science patent policies could undermine the very concept of "public
goods"
and the original premises which made it possible for agricultural
centres
to obtain more than 600,000 samples of farmers' seed varieties
throughout
the Third World.

"Trojan Trade Reps": Focusing on international agricultural research
centres, the report argues that public science is the victim of
declining
financial support (often the result of the mistaken assumption that
giant
companies can do science better) and intense pressure from agribusiness
to
adopt patents on living materials and particularly, U.S.-style patent
policies.  Such policies will compromise or distort "public goods" in
favour of corporate interests.  Asserting that international scientific
bodies are "genetically-incapable" of managing patent policies, the
report
warns that institutions are becoming "Trojan trade reps" for the U.S.
Government when they fail to acknowledge the sovereign right of
countries
and the human rights of farmers especially in the Third World- to access
the technologies they need for their well-being.  "International
scientists seem to believe it is unethical to utilize patented
technologies in countries where the patents are non-applicable with! out
the permission of the patent-holder.  If a company does not apply for
patent protection in Ethiopia, Ethiopians have every right to avail
themselves of the technology.  That's international law," Pat Mooney,
RAFI's Executive Director, says.  "If public science fails to
disseminate
technologies that could be beneficial to Third World countries merely
because they would offend patent-holders in other countries, they are
siding with the multinationals against the poor.  If they acquire
licenses
to use patented technologies and then pass on licensing restrictions to
countries where the patent is invalid, they are, again, siding with the
multinationals," Mooney insists.  "Public science has to decide who they
are serving.  They cannot become the Trojan trade reps of the
multinationals."

Human Rights Violations?  The RAFI report notes that both the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Human Rights Commission
have recently warned that the World Trade Organization's TRIPS
(Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property) agreement could be in
conflict with more than one Human Rights covenant.  In June, the UNDP's
Human Development Report specifically criticized the TRIPS accord as a
threat to Human Rights.  On August 17th, the UN Sub-Commission on the
Promotion and Protection of Human Rights unanimously challenged TRIPS as
impacting negatively on the rights of poor people to benefit from new
technologies.

"International Agricultural Research Centres, by submitting to the
national patent laws of some Northern countries, are denying countries
in
the South access to potentially useful technologies, and/or imposing
unethical constraints on their use, and/or misusing public financial
contributions to pay patent-holders for technologies that are actually
freely-available," Hope Shand, RAFI's Research Director, states, "This
is
unacceptable and it must not be permitted.  The integrity of
international
public science is at stake."

"Hippocrates, we have a problem!"  Despite its conclusion that
international public science should not be allowed to set patent policy,
the RAFI report is sympathetic to the conundrum facing researchers.  
"These are good and decent people trying their best for world
agriculture," Pat Mooney acknowledges.  "They are caught between a rock
and a hard place.  If they ignore corporate patents they could face
reprisals not only from the companies but also from the Northern
governments who fund international science.  If they acquiesce to
corporate demands, farmers and consumers could - and should - protest
their actions before the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.  Their
predicament is not of their making," Mooney adds.  "But they have the
predicament nonetheless," Hope Shand concurs, "and they have to get
themselves out of it. Rather than being taken to the Human Rights
Commissioner, they should join with those they wish to serve and ask
Mary
Robinson (the UN High Commissione! r for Human Rights) to investigate
the
problem."

RAFI's report identifies three major steps that science networks such as
the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)
should take.  "First, CGIAR should join with Civil Society Organizations
in asking the Human Rights Commission to investigate and advise on this
conflict," Shand says.  "Second, when the CGIAR holds its annual meeting
in Washington this October, it should ask either UNDP or FAO to seek an
advisory opinion from the World Court on the implications of patents on
biological materials and the consequences for national sovereignty and
Human Rights.  Third," Hope Shand concludes, "CGIAR should join with
others in seeking political solutions to the problem through a Special
Session of the UN General Assembly on science and innovation."

28 Steps to Higher Ground: Although "In Search of Higher Ground"
emphasizes the perils of patenting and the failures of public science to
meet the policy challenge, it also offers 28 specific steps that
institutes could take to defend their interests.  Among the 28 are
several
that would modify current patent regimes to safeguard public goods.  
There are also "trade union" opportunities for public science to adopt
collective bargaining strategies and make common cause with wider social
movements.  "For scientists, a protest letter in Nature constitutes a
primal scream.  They just have no sense of political strategy or of
policy
alternatives," Pat Mooney worries.

Not all of RAFI's concerns are leveled at public scientists.  "As Civil
Society Organizations, we have to decide whether we want to safeguard
public goods and public research, or let these institutions be absorbed
into corporate globalization," Mooney continues, "Most of us, quite
rightly, disagree with the biotech strategy being pursued by many of
these
institutions and it is hard to sympathize with their problems.  
Nevertheless, international science has shown itself to be much more
responsive to farmers' concerns in recent years."

"I think we have to fight first for the public's right to access the
technologies they want," says Shand, "and to develop new technologies in
the public domain - high-tech or wide-tech (farmer-led research).  Then
we
have to confront the institutions with our dissatisfaction over their
research methods and priorities.  If they will join us before the Human
Rights Commission - be 'doers' rather than be 'done to' - this could be
the beginning of resurgence in public support for public science."



RAFI (The Rural Advancement Foundation International) is an
international
civil society organization based in Canada.  RAFI is dedicated to the
conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and to the socially
responsible development of technologies useful to rural societies.  RAFI
is concerned about the loss of agricultural biodiversity, and the impact
of intellectual property on farmers and food security.

For more information, contact:

Pat Mooney, Executive Director, RAFI mooney@rafi.org

Hope Shand, Director of Research, RAFI hope@rafi.org

To add or remove your name from the RAFI listserver, please go to
www.rafi.org and then "Sign Up" where you will be given the choice of
adding or removing your name.



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-- 
James Love  mailto:love@cptech.org http://www.cptech.org
Consumer Project on Technology, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
voice 1.202.387.8030  fax  1.202.234.5176