PHM-Exch> UN SR on health asked to intervene in TPP Trade negotiation

[Claudio Schuftan]

*From:* ESCR-Net <Escr-net at escr-net.org>
 escr-trade at yahoogroups.com
*
*

*UN Special Raporteur on right to health asked to intervene in TPP Trade
negotiation <http://www.keionline.org/node/1099>*

KEI press release | March 21, 2011.

Eleven public interest advocacy groups and three law professors have
submitted a petition to Anand Grover, the Special Rapporteur for the United
Nations on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable
standard of health. A copy of the petition is available on the Internet
here: http://www.keionline.org/node/1099

The Special Rapporteur has been asked to intervene in a new regional trade
agreement named the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement. In
particular, the parties filing the complaint charge that the negotiations on
intellectual property norms, in terms of process and substance, threaten and
violate the right of hundreds of millions of persons to the enjoyment of the
highest attainable standard of health.

Parties to the negotiation now include the governments of Brunei, Chile, New
Zealand, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, Peru, Vietnam and the United
States. However, it is expected that attempts will be made to extend the
norms to a much wider group of trading partners. Moreover, given economies
of scale, any agreement that shrinks the market for legal generic medicines
will have an adverse impact on consumers everywhere.

The TPP agreement, is being negotiated behind a veil of secrecy, underming
the ability for the persons who will be affected by the norms to participate
effectively in efforts to influence the outcome of the negotiations. The
lack of access to information is not universal, however, as some corporate
interests have special access to information about the negotiations that is
not available to the general public.

A recent leak of a copy of the United States government’s proposal for a
chapter on intellectual property rights has revealed the negotiation is
addressing the most sensitive issues in the area of access to medicine,
including such items as the standards for granting patents on medical
inventions, patent extensions, the exclusive rights in regulatory test data,
restrictions on the “in-transit” shipments of legitimate generic drugs, and
other topics.

The Commission on Human Rights resolution 2002/31 provides the Special
Rapporteur for the right to health the mandate to issue an urgent appeal or
allegation letter to Governments based on reliable information on alleged
violations of the right to health. The Special Rapporteur can write to the
Government(s) concerned, "either together with other special procedure
mandates or independently, inviting comment on the allegation(s), seeking
clarifications, reminding a Government of its obligations under
international law in relation to the right to health, and requesting
information, where relevant, on steps being taken by the authorities to
redress the situation in question."

Communications from the Special Rapporteur to the concerned Government(s),
either in the form of an Urgent appeal or an allegation letter are
confidential at an initial stage. Once the summary of letters and the
response of the of the concerned Government(s) are enclosed into addendum 1
of the Human Rights Council’s annual report, then this information becomes
public.

The organizations and individuals signing the petition include:

[image: -] James Love, Thiru Balasubramaniam, Krista Cox and Manon Ress on
behalf of Knowledge Ecology International
[image: -] Edward Low on behalf of the Positive Malaysian Treatment Access &
Advocacy Group (MTAAG+)
[image: -] German Holguin Zamorano on behalf of Latin American and
Caribbean(LAC)-Global Alliance for Access to Medicines
[image: -] Roberto Lopez on behalf of Acción Internacional por la Salud
(HAI) Peru
[image: -] Dr Patricia Ranald on behalf of the Australian Fair Trade and
Investment Network
[image: -] Jose Teran on behalf of Acción Internacional por la Salud (HAI)
Ecuador
[image: -] Francisco Rossi on behalf of IFARMA Foundation - Colombia
[image: -] German Holguin Zamorano on behalf of Mision Salud, Colombia
[image: -] Alejandra Alayza on behalf of Peruvian Network for Fair
Globalisation - RedGE
[image: -] Health Action International (HAI) Europe
[image: -] Acción Internacional por la Salud (HAI) Latin America and the
Caribbean
[image: -] Alberto Cerda Silva, Professor of Law, University of Chile Law
School
[image: -] Allen Black Jr., Adjunct Professor of Law, University of
Pittsburgh
[image: -] Jane Kelsey, Professor of Law, University of Auckland
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