[e-drug] Wash Post: Activists, Developing Nations Make Gains

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E-DRUG: Wash Post: Activists, Developing Nations Make Gains
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37845-2001Nov15.html

Getting WTO's Attention
Activists, Developing Nations Make Gains

By Paul Blustein Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 16, 2001; Page E01

DOHA, Qatar Considering this was a meeting of the World Trade Organization,
an
institution often vilified as an agent of multinational corporate
capitalism, some of the
results evoked surprisingly joyful reactions among advocates for the world's
oppressed.
"This would have been unthinkable six months ago, or six weeks ago, or even
six days
ago," Ellen 't Hoen, a representative of Doctors Without Borders, said
Tuesday as she
clutched a freshly issued WTO declaration affirming the rights of poor
countries to
override drug patents and obtain cheap generic medicine for victims of AIDS
and other
illnesses. Mirroring her delight was the grumpiness among representatives of
the
pharmaceutical industry -- precisely the sort of corporate agents so
frequently depicted
as the WTO's puppet masters -- who were worried that the declaration might
raise new
questions about the sanctity of drug companies' patents. It was an
illuminating moment
in the evolution of the WTO since its famous debacle two years ago in
Seattle, where
tens of thousands of anti-globalization demonstrators disrupted a meeting
that ended
without an agreement on further trade talks. The just concluded meeting in
this Persian
Gulf emirate proceeded this week with only scattered, tame demonstrations by
the few
dozen activists who managed to obtain visas from the Qatari authorities, and
it
concluded triumphantly with an accord among trade ministers from the 142
member
countries to launch a new round of global trade negotiations. But especially
striking was
the populist impulse behind the declaration on the drug-patent issue, which
stemmed
from widespread outrage about the lack of affordable medicine for millions
of AIDS
victims in Africa and elsewhere. The declaration said the WTO's agreement
safeguarding patents and copyrights "does not and should not prevent
[countries] from
taking measures to protect public health." "It has taken people a while to
grasp what
has happened here; this has bigger ramifications than our single issue,"
said James
Love, a critic of the drug industry who directs Ralph Nader's Consumer
Project on
Technology. "Is the WTO turning into the General Assembly of the United
Nations? Is it
no longer the playground of the rich and powerful? Consumer interests have
now
established that they can play this game." As far as WTO officials were
concerned, the
victory for the AIDS activists and their allies provided a revealing example
of how the
Geneva-based organization works in writing the rules of global commerce --
which is to
say, in an often-unwieldy fashion, by consensus, with even the smallest
member nation
theoretically able to block action. In this case, several developing
countries, led by
Brazil, India and South Africa, pressed hard for a declaration expanding
their rights to
produce and obtain generic drugs. The United States, Switzerland, Japan and
other
nations with major pharmaceutical companies resisted, arguing that the
wording
proposed by the developing countries would undermine patent rights and risk
severely
damaging the financial incentives for drugmakers to develop lifesaving
medicines. But
the rich nations knew that if they didn't go a long way toward meeting the
developing
countries' demands, they might fail to gain a consensus for the items they
wanted to
negotiate, including lower trade barriers for their exports, and might even
end up with no
agreement at all. They accepted an altered version of the developing
countries' draft,
partly because they wanted a success at Doha to send a signal of
international
cooperation during a time of global political and economic trouble. "We've
got to
negotiate under our leaky and imperfect umbrella, but at least our umbrella
covers the
small guy," said WTO Director General Michael Moore. Of the process that led
WTO
critics to hail one of its declarations, he said: "I think it's been an
educational journey
for both sides." Not all AIDS activists are satisfied with the declaration
on patents and
health, which some fear lacks legally binding force. And many of the
activists attending
this week's meeting continued to generally disdain the WTO, which they
believe is too
secretive and biased in favor of trade over other goals such as worker
rights, the
environment and food safety. As the negotiators were haggling over the final
wording,
Greenpeace members staged a demonstration in which they ostentatiously tore
up
copies of the declaration launching the new trade round. (Being
environmentalists, they
posted notices promising to take the wastepaper aboard their ship, the
Rainbow
Warrior, and recycle it at the nearest facility.) The activists' clout at
the WTO is
weakest when their goals aren't shared by developing country governments,
whose
citizens the activists purport to champion. That's often a problem for
environmentalists,
because trade officials in the Third World are leery of establishing
international
environmental standards. Such standards, they suspect, will be used as an
excuse by
protectionist-minded rich countries to restrict imports of goods made in
poor countries.
The issue of drug patents was one on which activists and developing
countries saw
nearly eye-to-eye, and they worked together very effectively, with
protesters in the
United States and Europe pounding on their governments to show less support
for the
drug companies and more sympathy for AIDS victims. This week's declaration
showed
how potent the alliance between the activists and developing countries can
be. On
Wednesday, as the WTO meeting was winding to a close, Harvey Bale, director
general
of the International Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, was trying to
put the
best face on the declaration, which he had initially denounced for its
ambiguous wording
concerning the rights of drug patent holders. One good thing about the
declaration, he
said, was that it recommitted WTO members to the organization's overall
intellectual
property agreement. But Bale acknowledged that business groups like his are
facing a
different situation from the 1970s and 1980s, when Bale was a U.S. trade
official and
the world trade body -- then known as the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade --
was much more dominated than it is today by the "Quad" powers: the United
States,
the European Union, Japan and Canada. Now, Bale said, developing countries
are
banding together despite their differences and showing a greater readiness
to use their
muscle in the WTO. "That," he added, "gives the activists fertile ground." ©
2001 The
Washington Post Company

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