International group of access to medicine groups, academics and experts, who gathered at the University of California at Berkeley Law School, have called upon policy makers in governments and international organizations like WIPO, WHO and WTO to reject the cynical and dangerous efforts that are being made through the "intellectual property enforcement" initiatives to prioritize commercial interests over the right to health.

In the 'Berkeley Declaration on Intellectual Property Enforcement and Access to Medicines', addressed to the WIPO, WTO and WHO, these groups have said that the enforcement agenda threatens the last decade of efforts to achieve access to medicines for people in low- and middle-income countries, and compromises the attainment of health-related Millennium Development Goals.

The 'Berkeley Declaration' said that access to medicines in developing countries depends on the ability of countries to produce, export, and import generic medicines. Restrictions on generics impede competition, leading to increased prices, and preventing people with limited resources from accessing the medicines that they need. New enforcement measures have been used by customs officials to disrupt the supply of legal generic medicines between developing countries as they transit through Europe. The draft Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) represents a deliberate and non-transparent attempt to bypass multilateral institutions, while ultimately aiming to impose its standards on developing countries.

The recent IP enforcement agenda is being promoted in many fora: globally, in the ACTA negotiations; regionally, with the East African Community draft "anti-counterfeit" policy and Bill; and nationally in free trade agreement negotiations with the European Union and national "anti-counterfeiting" laws, among others. Additional sites of these initiatives include the World Customs Organization SECURE project, the World Health Organization International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT), and Interpol. Public safety is being cynically used as a pretext to promote these initiatives. "In particular, we reject the attempt to conflate the serious public health issue of medicines quality with private concerns about the enforcement of intellectual property rights," the Declaration said.

Demanding to abandon the ACTA, the Declaration further said that the ACTA represents some of the worst enforcement practices on both substance and process. The agreement has been conducted through a secretive, illegitimate process, and there is no evidence that its procedural or substantive shortcomings can be remedied in the current structure.

"The European Union should cease its efforts to export its much-criticized enforcement policies to low- and middle-income countries. We call for a moratorium on exporting these policies through free trade agreements and technical and financial assistance. The review of EU customs regulations that was prompted by the recent generic drug seizures must be concluded with amendments to these regulations that remedy the threat that they pose to access to medicines," the Declaration said.

Those who signed the Declaration included Farmamundi; Health Action International Africa; Knowledge Ecology International; Public Citizen; Third World Network; Universities Allied for Essential Medicines; William L Aldis assistant professor (Global Health), Faculty of Public Health, Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand; Kajal Bhardwaj, Lawyer (HIV, health and human rights), India; Michelle Childs, director Policy Advocacy, Médicins Sans Frontières Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines; Gwen Hinze, International Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation; Busingye Kabumba, lecturer on Law, Human Rights and Peace Centre (HURIPEC), Makerere University; Amy Kapczynski, assistant professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley Law School; Els Torreele, project director, Access to Essential Medicines Initiative, Open Society Institute; and German Velasquez, senior adviser for Health and Development, The South Centre, Geneva.