RCEP draft moots tough curbs on cheap medicines

RCEP draft moots tough curbs on cheap medicines

Analysis of leaked chapter of the draft RCEP agreement

Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement – being negotiated by 16 countries (10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and 6 other countries that have Free Trade Agreements with the ASEAN)

• A leaked chapter of the draft RCEP agreement reveals that the trade pact in its current form could reduce access to affordable medicines in many developing countries.

• The chapter on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) is part of draft of the RCEP agreement.

• India has opposed some damaging proposals initiated by the RCEP members, particularly Japan and Korea, involving patent extensions,restrictive rules on copyright exceptions, and other anti-consumer measures.

• Some member countries, who are part of both the TPP [the U.S.-led Trans Pacific Partnership] and the RCEP, are trying to push for the TPP standards in RCEP.

• Japan and Korea are working to introduce some of the worst ideasfrom the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), the TPP and other trade agreements in the RCEP chapter on Intellectual Property.

• There are proposals for patent extensions, restrictive rules on exceptions to copyright, and dozens of other anti-consumer measures, illustrating the power of rights-holder groups to use secret trade negotiations to influence democratic decisions that impact access to knowledge, the freedom to innovate and the right to health in negative ways.

• The humanitarian aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières’(MSF) is particularly concerned about a proposal by Japan and Korea demanding patent term extension — from the current 20 years by an additional five years — in ASEAN countries that are not party to the TPP.

TRIPS plus

• From India’s point of view, the draft proposals will compel governments to commit to newer Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights provisions like TRIPS plus — including the Patent Law Treaty (Geneva, 2000), which involve harmonisation in the examination of patent applications and requirements of patentability.

• Countries like India have, in the past, resisted pressure to sign the patents treaty as it can curtail the flexibility under the Indian system to address key public policy issues such as ever greening.

• If these terms are accepted, it would limit access to affordable medicines for people in Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos who depend on Indian generics.