Oxfam International, a confederation of 13 organizations working together in more than 100 countries for social justice, has urged the developing countries including India to resist TRIPS-plus rules in free trade agreements (FTAs). It wanted these countries to prevent introduction of TRIPS-plus rules in national legislation and fully implement TRIPS safeguards to ensure production of generic medicines for domestic consumption and for export to other developing countries. Oxfam also wanted World Trade Organisation (WTO) to review the impact of the TRIPs agreement on the affordability and availability of medicines in developing countries.
The briefing paper 'Patents versus Patients', released by Oxfam on the completion of five years of Doha Declaration of WTO, termed access to medicines a basic human right. "In 2001, the Doha Declaration was agreed upon by all WTO members to ensure that public health overrides commercial interests. Developing countries and civil society accepted the Declaration in good faith, believing that Northern governments and the pharmaceutical industry had finally acknowledged the harm strict intellectual property rules caused in developing countries. Yet five years later, as the health crisis in developing countries grows unabated, rich countries and pharmaceutical companies continue undermining poor people's rights to medicines," Oxfam complained.
To reduce the burden of intellectual property rules, Oxfam recommends that 'WTO should review the impact of the TRIPs agreement on the affordability and availability of medicines in developing countries'. The review should be supported by independent studies by the WHO and other relevant international organisations, in consultation with governments and public interest groups, it said.
Oxfam wanted the USA to 'stop coercing developing countries into adopting TRIPS-plus' intellectual property protections through bilateral and regional trade agreements, threats of trade sanctions, and the WTO accession process. Demand for encouraging WTO talks to ensure that IP rules represent the interests and needs of poor countries, seeking help from UN agencies like UNCTAD, WIPO, and WHO to provide independent technical assistance and support to poor countries to enact TRIPS safeguards etc were some of the other recommendations.
The NGO also felt that the rich countries should incorporate the Paragraph 6 solution (the solution permits manufacturing countries to export generic versions of patented medicines to developing countries with insufficient or no domestic manufacturing capacity) into their national legislation and provide technical, political, and economic support to poor countries to enact and enforce TRIPS safeguards and resist TRIPS-plus rules. It asked the pharmaceutical companies to stop lobbying rich country governments to promote stricter intellectual property rules worldwide, and stop pressuring poor countries to accept stronger intellectual property rules that undermine public health.