August 22, 2000
PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Kristin Dawkins, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy Tel: 612-870-3410; Fax: 612-870-4846; Email: kdawkins@iatp.org
UNITED NATIONS BODY WARNS OF CONFLICTS BETWEEN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
COULD INFLUENCE PATENTS FOR DRUGS, BIOTECH SEEDS
Geneva - On August 17, 2000, an important UN human rights body unanimously adopted a resolution calling into question the impact of the World Trade Organization(WTO)'s Agreement on Intellectual Property Rights (known as TRIPS) on the human rights of peoples and communities, including farmers and indigenous peoples worldwide.
The surprising resolution signals a growing concern about an industry-driven intellectual property agreement that protects corporate patents around the world, sometimes at the expense of national economic and health concerns. The TRIPs agreement sets international rules to protect patents in a whole host of sectors, but it is particularly important for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
The United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights passed the resolution asking that the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the WTO, and various other international agencies ensure that intellectual property rights do not take precedent over basic human rights.
Kristin Dawkins of the Minneapolis-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy welcomed the Sub-Commission resolution, calling it "a courageous act in today's political climate." She noted the role of the pharmaceutical industry in the drafting of the TRIPS Agreement, commenting that "the TRIPS requirements for an 'effective' system of intellectual property protection for plant varieties could violate Farmers' Rights to save, exchange, re-use and sell seed from their own harvests.
Already in the United States, the Monsanto Company (recently acquired by Pharmacia, Inc.) has employed Pinkerton detectives to find and prosecute farmers who are harvesting seed from its patented crops. If replicated throughout the world, such enforcement of intellectual property rights would violate the human rights of hundreds of millions of farming families who depend on recycling seed for survival." This, Dawkins said, would constitute a direct violation of Article 1 of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which stipulates that "In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence."
Simon Walker of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights noted that the TRIPS Agreement's requirement that pharmaceuticals be patented by all WTO Members "might be appropriate for countries with high levels of investment in medical research. But," he asked, "is it suitable for countries with a high level of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis infection that have not yet developed a pharmaceutical research base? For these countries, access to drugs -- rather than innovation of drugs -- is the imperative. Given that there is a link between patent protection and higher prices for pharmaceuticals, the grant of private property rights could be detrimental to public health -- and development in general -- in these countries."
The UN Sub-Commission's resolution marks the beginning of what promises to be an intense monitoring of WTO work by the UN human rights system. The resolution asks the UN Secretary General to prepare a report on the implications of the TRIPS Agreement and options for further action by the Sub-Commission. The resolution has also called upon the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to undertake an analysis of the human rights impacts of the TRIPS agreement.
In the unprecedented resolution, the UN Sub-Commission for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights pointed out the dire consequences on the human rights to food, health and self-determination if the TRIPS Agreement is implemented in its current form. Reminding governments of the primacy of human rights obligations over economic policies and programs, the resolution states that there are "apparent conflicts between the intellectual property rights regime embodied in the TRIPS Agreement, on the one hand, and international human rights law, on the other."
Alarmed at the negative prospects from the implementation of the TRIPS Agreement, the Sub-Commission asked the WTO, in general, and the Council on TRIPS during its ongoing review of the TRIPS Agreement, in particular, "to take fully into account the existing State obligations under international human rights instruments."
This is a pathbreaking resolution in more ways than one, stated Miloon Kothari from the International NGO Committee on Human Rights in Trade and Investment (INCHRITI), an alliance of eight human rights coalitions that advocated action by the Sub-Commission on TRIPS. First and foremost this timely resolution signifies the resolve of the UN human rights programme to monitor the work of the WTO. Basing itself on the provisions of both the UN Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, this historic resolution has affirmed the primacy of human rights and environmental obligations over the commercial and profit driven motives upon which agreements such as TRIPS are based added Kothari.
The resolution comes at a time of intense questioning by developing country governments of the TRIPS Agreement and its interpretation and implementation, and of calls by numerous national and international civil society alliances for the TRIPS Agreement to be brought in line with human rights and environmental imperatives.
Stressing that intellectual property rights have to serve public benefit, and concerned by the true motives of the TRIPS agreement, the resolution calls upon governments to integrate into their national and local legislations and policies, provisions, in accordance with international human rights instruments and principles, that protect the social function of intellectual property.
According to Peter Prove of the Lutheran World Federation, a human rights analysis of the interpretation and implementation of the TRIPS Agreement reveals that TRIPS has skewed the balance inherent in intellectual property law systems away from the public interest and in favour of intellectual property rights holders. He said that, contrary to some analyses, intellectual property rights do not have the character of fundamental human rights, but rather of subordinate or instrumental rights.
For more information on the work of both the UN Sub-Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and INCHRITI, please contact:
Miloon Kothari, Habitat International Coalition and INCHRITI. Tel./Fax: 91.11.4628492; E-mail: hichrc@ndf.vsnl.net.in
Peter Prove, Lutheran World Federation and INCHRITI. Tel: 41.22.7916364; Fax: 41.22.7988616; E-mail: pnp@lutheranworld.org
For more information on the TRIPs Agreement and its impacts on the human rights to food and health, please contact:
Kristin Dawkins, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy Tel: 612.870.3410; Fax: 612 870 4846; Email: kdawkins@iatp.org:
