-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Ip-health] Academics' Expert Letter on LDCs' TRIPS Extension
Request
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:05:10 +0000
From: Baker, Brook <[email protected]>
To: IP-health listserve <[email protected]>
Several of us are soliciting signatures from legal and other academics around
the world who focus on human rights, intellectual property, trade, and
development and who are in favor of the request by WTO least developed country
Members that they be granted an extension of the time period within which they
must become compliant with the TRIPS Agreement. WTO LDC Members were initially
given an extension with respect to all TRIPS requirements except national and
most favored nation treatment until 2006. That transition period was further
extended until June 30, 2013 in 2005 (a separate extension was granted on
pharmaceuticals only until 2016) but with some unfortunate conditions (beyond
the unreasonably short term), such as a requirement that LDCs must keep their
current level of IP protections, something that was not required by TRIPS
Article 66.1. The current request from LDC Members is for an unconditional
extension of the transition period so long as an LDC Member is an LDC. It is
hoped that a longer and unconditional extension permitting rollback of
improvidently adopted IP standards will allow LDCs to build their technological
base and improve limiting domestic capacities. This request has received
support from 350 civil society organizations, from some industry groups, from
several multilateral organizations, and from many developing country members of
the WTO.
We are seeking signatures beyond those who focus primarily on access to
medicine, to academics who are also concerned about IP impacts in LDCs on
access to information (especially IT, educational, and scientific resources),
agricultural resources, green and climate control/mitigation technologies, and
development more generally. We already have 30 signers, including several
leading international IP and trade experts.
We need help getting the letter distributed to a broader group of global
academics, so would greatly appreciate your efforts in this regard.
There is some urgency since the US and EU are ramping up their pressure on LDCs to
impose a short and highly conditionalized extension and the final TRIPS Council
meeting will happen soon. Therefore, we will be collecting signatures until April
26. Please send your sign-ons to me: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>.
Brook
Professor Brook K. Baker
Health GAP (Global Access Project)
Northeastern U. School of Law
Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy
400 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115 USA
Honorary Research Fellow, University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban, S. Africa
(w) 617-373-3217
(cell) 617-259-0760
(fax) 617-373-5056
[email protected]
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