한미 FTA 저지 지적재산권 분야 대책위원회

Undermining access to medicines:Comparison of five US FTA’s

A technical note

June 2004

The US government is using bilateral and regional free-trade agreements (FTAs) to impose unnecessarily stringent intellectual property standards on developing countries that go beyond even the damaging requirements of World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. These new higher standards favour the short-term commercial interests of US pharmaceutical companies, at the expense of public health in developing countries.

Recent FTAs negotiated by the US include US-Chile (2003), US-Jordan (2000), US-Morocco (2004), US-Singapore (2003), and the US-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA–2004) 1 that includes the Dominican Republic. The US is also negotiating numerous new FTAs with other developing countries including the Free Trade Area of the Americas 2 (FTAA deadline 2005), Andean countries, Thailand,
Panama, Bahrain and Southern African countries, with others under consideration.

In the following table, Oxfam has analysed a selection of key US FTAs. Our analysis shows that the provisions in these agreements go far beyond the obligations required by the WTO Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The table shows how these new “TRIPS-plus” obligations in the FTAs close off the public health safeguards available to WTO members under TRIPs and will restrict access to affordable medicines in developing countries. The negotiation of TRIPS-plus patent rules also contravenes the WTO Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health and the US administration’s trade negotiating mandate that instructs the USTR to respect the Doha Declaration in all FTA negotiations.

Oxfam urges:
• the USA to refrain from imposing TRIPS-plus standards in bilateral and regional trade agreements with developing countries
• the EU, other rich countries and developing countries to collectively call for an end to this practice at international forums such as the WTO and WHO
• developing countries to say no to negotiating intellectual property standards in FTAs.
• the international community to continue monitoring the health impacts of global patent rules with a view to giving developing countries greater freedom to decide the appropriate length and scope of patent protection for medicines based on their public health needs.