Hvorfor hører vi ikke frihandlerne som stadig hyler opp om
proteksjonisme, angripe TRIPS og patentsystemet like hardt? Hva er
TRIPS, annet enn proteksjonisme for de rike?
Rich Country Protectionism
Puts WTO on the Slow Track
By Mark Weisbrot
"Free trade" ideologues scoffed at the Teamsters and turtles that
converged on Seattle two years ago, protesting the WTO's disregard for
the environment and labor. The WTO was the last best hope for the
world's poor, they said.
But the rules of the WTO are, by any honest accounting, a net loss for
the developing countries of the world. In fact, that is one of the
main reasons for the lack of progress at the ministerial meeting just
concluded in Doha, Qatar: these countries are beginning to defend
their interests.
It is ironic but fitting that one of the major sore points between
North and South was disagreement over "intellectual property rights."
A compromise was reached at Doha, but it will by no means resolve this
contentious issue. The WTO has presented itself as an organization
dedicated to "free trade," yet its rules on intellectual property --
for example, patents -- constitute the most costly and dangerous form
of protectionism in the world.
If we add up the cost of this protectionism to developing countries,
it runs into the tens of billions of dollars annually -- perhaps even
more. Even if the United States, Europe, Japan, and other rich
countries were to open up their markets beyond anyone's expectations
to developing countries' exports, it would not make up for their
losses due to foreign intellectual property claims.
A growing number of prominent economists have begun to see this
protectionism as unfair, and inconsistent with the free trade agenda
that most of the profession supports. These economists include Joseph
Stiglitz, winner of this year's Nobel Prize; Columbia University's
Jagdesh Bhagwati; and senior economists from the World Bank.
>From an economic point of view, monopolies created by patents or
copyrights are analytically the same as the distortions created by
tariffs or import quotas. The main difference is that patent
monopolies raise the price of the protected product by many times more
than a typical tariff. So it is only natural that economists would
oppose rules that extend these government restrictions on
international competition, especially in an organization supposedly
dedicated to spreading the benefits of "free trade."
On the other side are trade officials from the United States,
Switzerland, Japan, and other nations that are home to major players
in the pharmaceutical industry. Much to their shame, these officials
have sought to limit as much as possible the right of developing
countries to increase access to essential medicines through generic
competition.
The life-and-death consequences of this protectionism have become
clear in the last few years, as it became known that the anti-AIDS
drugs that keep people alive in the US for $10,000 a year are
available in generic form for less than $350. In the last three years,
the US government and pharmaceutical companies have three times been
forced by international embarrassment to abandon attempts to keep
these generic drugs from people in developing countries -- some 36
million of whom have HIV or AIDS.
The most recent instance was a case at the WTO itself. In January the
Clinton administration challenged Brazil's laws dealing with the
manufacture and import of generic AIDS drugs. These laws formed an
important part of Brazil's remarkably successful AIDS treatment
program, which has cut by half the number of AIDS-related deaths there
in recent years. The Brazilian government stood firm, and Washington
dropped its case in June.
The compromise at Doha did not change the WTO's legal language on
pharmaceuticals, but offered a political declaration that is thought
to make it easier for developing countries to use generic drugs for
health emergencies. But there is no saving a structure that is rotten
at its foundations. Even if we were to fix TRIPS (Trade Related
Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights), there is still TRIMS (Trade
Related Investment Measures) and the GATS (General Agreement on Trade
in Services). All of this alphabet soup has the same basic function:
to limit the development options available to representative
governments, and subordinate the needs of developing countries to
those of transnational corporations and banks.
It has become a truism that the WTO must go forward, because the poor
and the weak need a "rules- based system" for international
commerce. But that depends on the rules. There may be a way to make
expanding international trade and investment serve the needs of
humanity, but it will not be found within the World Trade
Organization.
Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy
Research (www.cepr.net), in Washington, DC.
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