PRIVATE PATENTS AND PUBLIC HEALTH

NGOS ADVOCATE FOR HEALTH PRIMACY OVER PATENTS
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) also increased their
involvement in the trade and health debates and focussed their attention
on the WTO. In anticipation of the 1999 Seattle WTO ministerial
conference, there was a flurry of activity that strengthened the IP
knowledge base that NGOs had and their ability to mobilise quickly in
relation to the issue.
Fuelled by the “health primacy” debates at the WHA and against the
backdrop of the court case between South Africa and thirty-nine
pharmaceutical companies claiming some of South Africa’s provisions to
increase access to medicines were not compliant with TRIPS, 38 a coalition
of groups consisting of Health Action International (HAI), the Consumer
Project on Technology (CPTech, now Knowledge Ecology International or
KEI), Act Up–Paris, the Health GAP Coalition, Oxfam, and the Access to
Medicines Campaign of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) came together.
These groups worked in close collaboration with national treatment
action groups in various countries, notably in Thailand, Brazil, India,
Malaysia, Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa and others.
In March 1999, MSF, HAI and CPTech organised the first meeting on
compulsory licensing of AIDS medicines, held at the UN in Geneva. Later
that year, a larger coalition of NGOs organised a global conference in
Amsterdam on access to medicines. At the Amsterdam conference,
participants called for health to be made a priority at the WTO Seattle
negotiations and demanded a balance between the rights of patent holders
and the rights of citizens in IP rights regulations. These views were shared
by representatives of UNDP, WHO, WTO, members of the governments of
the Netherlands and Thailand, and NGOs attending the Amsterdam
conference. The meeting brought together 350 participants from 50
developing and developed countries, from the private and public sectors. 39
NEGOTIATIONS ON TRIPS AND PUBLIC HEALTH AT THE WTO,
1999–2001
1
ENDING GLOBAL DIVERSITY IN PATENT LAWS: THE TRIPS AGREEMENT
The debate on TRIPS and public health started at the WTO in late 1999
at the ministerial in Seattle. While not on the official agenda, the issue of
public health and access to medicines received attention for a number of
reasons.
First, the European Commission prepared a Common Working Paper
that proposed developing countries be allowed to issue “compulsory
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