WTO forced TRIPs on developing countries

Kottayam: Trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPs) was forced upon developing countries by the World Trade Organization (WTO) regime by undermining their flexibility in developing appropriate industrial and health policies, said Dr. Reji Joseph, an expert on Intellectual Property Rights, and a Faculty member of the School of International Studies at Central University of Gujarat.  

Mr Reji was delivering a special lecture on “TRIPs and Public Health: Challenges for India” at the School of International Relations and Politics (SIRP), at Mahatma Gandhi University on Monday.

Dr Reji said that the implications of the new IPR policy were evident in the health and pharmaceutical sector. The new patent regime has not only caused a spurt in the prices of medicines but it has also led to the increasing Out of the Pocket Expenditure (OPE) in health. The number of people pushed into poverty on account of OPE in health due to this has increased considerably.   

The Draft National Health Policy, 2015 stated that 63 million people in India are in poverty because of thew expense on health care, he added. Mr Reji added that a decline in drug prices would have enabled many more people in India to take proper treatment.  

The situation is the same elsewhere in the developing countries. Public health finance in developing countries is characterised by low public spending and high out of pocket spending, he maintained.  

Dr. Reji noted that while advanced countries continued using compulsory licensing (CLs) to protect their economic and public interests, they did not allow this for countries like India.  

Consequently there is tremendous pressure on India to do away with TRIPs flexibility. In fact, India did not have any mechanism to facilitate access to affordable medicines because it had to yield to these pressures, thereby complying with the TRIPs-Plus standards, he added. Prof KM Seethi, Director (SIRP) chaired the session.