CCIA Endorses TRIPS Deferral Request For Least Developed Countries
3/4/2013
CCIA) today endorsed a bid by the world’s Least Developed
Countries (LDC’s) to remove any specific deadline for full compliance with the
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement. As a
technology trade organization, CCIA believes premature implementation of
stepped up protections would be counterproductive, adding costs to public
health systems and other administrative burdens at a moment when these
countries are contending with human and technological barriers to
modernization.
“These countries will eventually benefit from implementing a balanced
intellectual property system, but they need to be free to do this when they
judge themselves ready, not on an arbitrary timeline set by others, ” said CCIA
President and CEO Ed Black. “We all look forward to the day when there are
no more LDCs, but as long as any country’s people are living on two dollars a
day they should have complete flexibility in IP protection implementation. It
is the right thing to do, therefore, to join the United Nations and hundreds of
other organisations worldwide in supporting their request for more time, and we
call upon the business community generally to join us.
First introduced in 1995, the TRIPS Agreement was meant to create a common
level of global protections for intellectual property. It has become
clear in the interim that where LDCs implement the rules without appropriate
safeguards it can extract a heavy toll on their ability to innovate and secure
access to medicines and other essential technologies. According to the United
Nations Development Programme, the 49 LDCs are home to 9.7 million of the 34
million people living with HIV worldwide. Of that number, 4.6 million were
eligible for treatment, in accordance with 2010 World Health Organisation (WHO)
guidelines, but only 2.5 million were receiving it, due to the costs of the
medicines themselves as well as constraints on these countries’ health budgets.
Recognizing this and related issues, the international community built
flexibilities into the implementation plan to allow countries more time,
but not enough. The latest extension is due to expire on July 31 of this year.
The TRIPS Council next meets on March 5th and 6th in
Geneva, and a proposal submitted on behalf of LDCs requests a further extension
to the general exemption from full TRIPS compliance for as long as a country
remains an LDC.
CCIA draws particular attention to an international civil society letter
drafted in the ramp up to the talks by more than 375 signatory NGO’s who argue
“any attempt to weaken or to refuse Least Developed Countries (LDCs)… will show
that the multilateral trading system is unable to benefit the poorest and most
vulnerable segment of the international community.”
“A balanced and effective intellectual property system is a key element of any
national innovation strategy but it should not be implemented in a vacuum. No
legal system will be seen as legitimate by a country’s citizens, if it appears
to be blind to basic human needs, like access to medicine. One of the best ways
to prove IP’s continuing relevance to the modern world is to give LDCs the
right to decide for themselves when it is appropriate to implement TRIPS,” said
CCIA Geneva Representative Nick Ashton-Hart.”
