Saturday, November 20th, 2010
My friend and colleague the Technoloma claims that ACTA has turned out to be a damp squid. He and I are in agreement on many issues, but this is an issue on which we come to different conclusions.
The reason that technollama gives for concluding: “at the moment it seems like the worst has been taken out of the agreement” is that the agreement as it now stands, and as technollama reads it, does not require statutory damages for copyright infringement, nor do the indisputably worrying intermediary liability provisions require 3 strikes style policing from Internet service providers.
However from the perspective of developing countries, a perspective which I’d expect technollama to understand and value, these are not have and have not been the primary problems with ACTA.
Instead there are a host of other problems with ACTA which will immediately hurt the poorest people in the world. I’ve set these out extensively in this working paper which is updated to take into account changes made to the draft treaty. Two of the most obvious are the squeezing of access to medicines and the future of the global intellectual property system. Already European customs officials are intercepting legitimate generic medicines being shipped through Europe to developing countries on the basis of spurious claims of trademark confusion. ACTA will require other countries to deprive poor people of medicines too.
In any event the mere existence of ACTA would if it is signed undercuts the legitimacy of WIPO and the WTO. It signals very strongly that not only are the developing countries unable to control the rent seeking of a few powerful corporations in their own countries but that they are willing to use their power to further that rent seeking in the rest of the world. This can only undermine the legitimacy of the global trading system, and a make a trade war more likely.
Posted in A2K | No Responses »
Tags: access to medicines, ACTA, body count, mutant octopus, octopus, rent seeking, squid, technollama, tentacles
Friday, November 5th, 2010
The Counterfeit Trade Agreement; ACTA, still threatens development.
Shortly after what was publicized as the final round of negotiations in Japan a revised text of ACTA was released. The text subtitles itself as a “Informal Predecisional/Deliberative Draft” and states “This text reflects the outcome of the 11th and final round of the negotiations held in Japan. Some delegations expressed reservation on specific parts of text, which are highlighted in the text by underlines and italic letters.”
This is curious, the final round of negotiations have been held but consensus hasn’t been reached. Apparently the European Union and the United States are still negotiating various issues. What does that mean for the trade representatives of other countries which participated in the secretive negotiations? Will they accept whatever is decided for them?
I’ve reworked my working paper on the impact of ACTA on development that is hosted at PIJIP. Unfortunately the October 2010 text continues to threaten the poorest people in the world.
One slightly hopeful sign is that the text currently claims to exclude patents for the border provisions, although it does so only in a footnote, not the text. In any case since the negotiators have claimed that they are not required to obtain the assent of democratically elected representatives of the people they retain the ability to change to include patents as originally required by the proponents of the treaty. But even if patents are excluded from the customs portion of the treaty the agreement is bad news for access to medicines, as shown by a recent attempt to block access in Europe (the EU has been pushing for border measures to apply to patents). German customs authorities seized a shipment of medicines in transit to the least developed country of Vanuatu . The medicines were the antibiotic, Amoxicillin. The patent for the drug has long expired (even I as an ignorant African was well aware of this) and there are numerous brand names; including (per Wikiepedia):
“Actimoxi, Alphamox, Amocla, AMK, Amoksibos, Amoxiclav Sandoz, Amoxidal, Amoxil, Amoxin, Amoksiklav, Amoxibiotic, Amoxicilina, Apo-Amoxi, Augmentin (with clavulanic acid), Bactox, Betalaktam, Cilamox, Curam, Dedoxil, Dispermox, Duomox, E-Mox, Enhancin, Gimalxina, Geramox, Hiconcil, Isimoxin, Klavox, Lamoxy, Moxatag, Moxilen, Moxypen, Moxyvit, Nobactam, Novamoxin, Ospamox, Panklav (with clavulanic acid), Pamoxicillin, Panamox, Polymox, Samthongcillin, Clamoxyl, Senox, Sinacilin, Trimox, Tolodina, Tormoxin (India), Wymox, Yucla, Zerrsox and Zimox.”
Apparently German customs officials couldn’t tell the difference between the generic name Amoxicillin and one of the brand names “Amoxil”, and so they seized the medicines as suspected counterfeit goods, because they believed them to be face medicines, not because they believed them to be dangerous but because they thought that because the packaging for the goods bore the word Amoxicillin that the goods, which were transiting and not being sold in Germany might infringe a trademark in Germany. Without anti-biotics people can die, but at no stage have the trade negotiators of ACTA acknowledged that they are playing with people’s lives, that there will be a body count as a result of ACTA, and that body count will primarily be the poorest people in the world.
Posted in A2K, A2LM | No Responses »
Tags: ACTA, Actimoxi, Alphamox, AMK, Amocla, amoicillin, Amoksibos, Amoksiklav, Amoxibiotic, Amoxicilina, Amoxiclav Sandoz, Amoxidal, Amoxil, Amoxin, Apo-Amoxi, Bactox, Betalaktam, bodycount, Cilamox, Clamoxyl, collateral damage, Curam, Dedoxil, Dispermox, Duomox, E-Mox, Enhancin, European Trade Commission, Geramox, Gimalxina, Hiconcil, Isimoxin, Klavox, Lamoxy, Moxatag, Moxilen, Moxypen, Moxyvit, Nobactam, Novamoxin, Obama, Ospamox, Pamoxicillin, Panamox, Panklav (with clavulanic acid), Polymox, Samthongcillin, Senox, Sinacilin, Tolodina, Tormoxin, Trimox, Wymox, Yucla, Zerrsox, Zimox
