AIDS groups from the Asia-Pacific region have joined public interest and public health groups around the world in calling for an immediate halt to the negotiations on the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) and for a human rights review of the text being negotiated.
According to public health groups, leaked texts analysed by legal and human rights experts show that the TPPA will threaten access to affordable generic medicines in the TPPA countries. The US has announced that the TPPA will be a template for future trade agreements and the US is likely to pressure other developing countries to join the TPPA if it is signed.
The Asia Pacific Network of Positive People (APN+), Positive Malaysian Treatment Access & Advocacy Group (MTAAG+) and the Vietnam Network of People living with HIV (VNP+) are sounding the alarm at the ongoing TPPA negotiations led by the US with seven countries in the Asia-Pacific region i.e. Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei.
The negotiations that appear to have entered their last leg have drawn the concern of UN experts who are warning against the adverse human rights impacts of this agreement.
In June 2015, 10 United Nations experts issued a joint statement calling for a human rights impact assessment of trade and investment agreements including the TPPA. The UN experts have highlighted concerns that the TPPA may contain provisions that cater “to the business interests of pharmaceutical monopolies and extending intellectual property protection.”
"Today, in the Asia-Pacific region, 2nd and 3rd line AIDS medicines are exorbitantly priced. US multinational pharmaceutical company Gilead is playing games with the lives of people living with Hepatitis C by creating a complex pathway of licenses, price negotiations and collection of personal data before patients can access sofosbuvir. Cancer treatment prices have skyrocketed. This is what the US-promoted patent rules in the WTO that require 20-year monopolies on medicines to be granted have resulted in. Now the next generation of international intellectual property obligations pushed by the US through the TPPA would keep even more medicines unaffordable for longer periods of time,” said Edward Low of MTAAG+.
Leaked TPPA negotiation texts show that the US is pushing intellectual property provisions far in excess of what developing countries like Vietnam and Malaysia have agreed to in the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Known as ‘TRIPS-plus,’ these measures are contrary to the WTO’s Doha Declaration which re-affirmed that TRIPS “can and should be interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO member’s right to protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for all.”
The UN experts have also highlighted the risks of investor-state dispute mechanisms that allow corporates to sue governments in private arbitration. They note that experience demonstrates that the ability of governments to legislate in the public interest has been put at risk including in relation to access to generic and essential medicines, and reduction of smoking.
“The call by the UN experts is a confirmation of our fears over the TPPA negotiations. APN+ members are in 6 of the TPPA countries: Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Japan and will be among the first to face the consequences of the TPPA on their health and lives. We are therefore calling on all governments negotiating the TPPA to immediately cease the negotiations and conduct an independent human rights review and impact assessment,” said Shiba Phurailatpam of APN+.
“Any trade agreement that further strengthens the hands of the multinational pharmaceutical industry to play games with the lives and health of millions of patients in the Asia-Pacific region is immoral and unconscionable,” he added.