NGOs call for WTO Moratorium on Regional and Bilateral Trade Agreements on Intellectual Property and Medicine

This is a joint NGO statement distributed at the Hong Kong WTO Ministerial on December 17, 2005.

December 17, 2005 Joint NGO Statement on Need for WTO Moratorium on Regional and Bilateral Trade Agreements and Policies Undermining Access to Health The following NGOs call upon WTO Members and their trade negotiators to protect the public from the explosion of one-sided and harmful regional and bilateral trade agreements that impose TRIPS plus obligations on developing countries that undermine access to medicine. These include but are not limited to: Restrictions to the grounds for compulsory licensing, Restrictions on parallel trade, Controversial obligations to create exclusive rights to the test data used to register new drugs, Extensions of patent terms beyond 20 years, Obligations for drug regulators to enforce patents of dubious validity or relevance, and Obligations to grant patents on second uses of medicines. These regional and bilateral trade agreements are the product of very unequal power relations. They are a deliberate effort to undermine the multilateral trading system. They are contrary to the values expressed in the 2001 WTO Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health. Unless the WTO can place meaningful restraints on such trade negotiations, consumers, including poor consumers, will not be protected from the effects of excessive and inappropriate intellectual property rules. We ask that Members agree to a moratorium on any new bilateral and regional trade agreements that include provisions involving intellectual property rights and medicines, and that all WTO Members agree they will not enforce any provisions in such agreements that are contrary to the 2001 Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health. We can no longer tolerate public officials patting themselves on the back for laudatory declarations on access to medicines that are not backed up by actions, and which are not only ignored in practice, but which are actively subverted in these regional and bilateral agreements. We ask these issues be specifically addressed in the spring meeting of the WTO that follows the Hong Kong Ministerial. Signed (Listed alphabetically) Act Up-Paris ALCS (Association de Lutte Contre le Sida) All India Drug Action Network Consumer Project on Technology Consumers International Consumers Union Diverse Women for Diversity EATG (European AIDS Treatment Group) Foundation for Consumers, Thailand FTA Watch, Thailand Health and Development Foundation, Thailand International Peoples Health Council MSF Access to Essential Medicines Campaign Navdanya Oxfam International People’s Health Movement Peoples Health Network Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology Thai Drug Study Group The Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (GNP+) Third World Network URFIG