Calls for NAFTA IP chapter to be abolished
More than 100 organisations have expressed concerns over the North American Free Trade Agreement ( NAFTA) renegotiations, suggesting that the IP chapter should be abolished.
The organisations, which include Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders, signed an open letter addressed to Canadian, Mexican and US health ministers, with IP rights at the forefront of their fears.
“We have heard troubling reports that the negotiating parties are considering changes to NAFTA’s IP chapter that would further expand the monopoly protections of prescription drug corporations and thus thwart market competition from generic products that is often essential to bring down consumer prices,” read the letter.
The letter’s signatories highlighted that the pharmaceutical industry is calling on the US to “demand so-called transparency rules”. If this attempt was successful, governments’ rights to control medicine prices would be restricted.
The letter added that “there are pressures from business lobbies to maintain investor-state dispute settlement, including with respect to IP-related investments, which undermines sovereign authority and allows unreviewable private arbitration claims by foreign investors against public interest laws and regulations”.
“All of these measures would contribute directly to escalating consumer prices and worse access to treatment in Canada, Mexico and the US.”
The organisations alleged that one in five people from the US fails to fill out prescriptions as a result of their costs, while one in five Canadians reportedly claimed that a member of their household cannot afford prescribed medications.
Furthermore, the groups alleged that 10-20% of Canadians are not filling out their prescription or are skipping intake to ensure that it lasts longer.
One of the most effective ways of reducing prices and ensuring that they continue to fall, according to the letter, is generic competition. “In the US, generic medicines have saved more than $1.6 trillion in healthcare costs in the past decade,” wrote the organisations.
Members of the US population highlighted the cost of prescriptions as one of their most important issues before the US Congress recently, according to the letter. Three quarters were said to favour shortening the length of the monopoly granted on prescription drugs, which would result in cheaper generic drugs being made available sooner.
NAFTA’s member states have all incorporated patent and data protection regulations into their domestic laws. According to the letter’s signatories, this heavily favours patent-based corporations by requiring the NAFTA nations to “provide various monopoly protections that shield them from competition”.
The letter called on any changes to NAFTA to rebalance the agreement’s terms in favour of competition and access to affordable healthcare.
It said that if the IP chapter was abolished, the NAFTA countries’ obligations would fall under the World Trade Organization’s TRIPS Agreement.
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