ISDS Case Map
medicines
Under global trading rules, the inventors of medicines ordinarily enjoy the right to a 20-year monopoly on their inventions. But five years ago, the United States joined 141 other countries to sign the Doha Declaration, confirming the right of poor countries to break drug patents and produce cheap generic drugs in the event of contagions like HIV.
At just $4million, it's hardly the biggest biotech deal ever struck by an Australian company, but it's an important first.
Report of the US government's Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Intellectual Property Rights (ITAC-15)
Although Thailand and South Korea are different in terms of development, people in both countries share a common demand for the protection of their right to affordable medicines and treatment.
The Rural Pharmacists Club issued a statement on Sunday calling for caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to resign and said the prime minister should face an investigation by independent committee over his alleged attempts to amend law to allow foreign companies to take over the country's vital state enterprises.
The South African Customs Union is in talks with the Indian government for signing a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to enhance the trade and business between both the countries.
Open letter to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
Access to medicine is at the forefront of multilateral debates surrounding the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). This paper argues that bilateralism allows the United States to circumvent these debates and to set standards that serve and protect the pharmaceutical industry.
Differences over pharmaceuticals could be overcome, but the countries are far from reaching a common understanding on biodiversity issues.
Details of US proposals in free-trade talks with Thailand - perceived by many Thais as “forbidden information” the government has tried to cover up - were recently posted for all to see in cyberspace. Witoon Leanchamroon, director of BioThai, a non-government organisation working for bio-diversity and community rights, said at a press conference yesterday he had been told a group of Americans involved in public health issues had posted a full text of the patent chapter from the Thai-US free trade talks at www.bilaterals.org.
