Global Policy Forum

By Ross Gittins

It seems a long time ago that S11 stood for September 11, 2000 - the first day of the anti-globalisation protests at the World Economic Forum in Melbourne. And it seems a long time until November 9, 2001 - the last day of campaigning in the federal election, but also the first day of the World Trade Organisation's meeting in the bustling metropolis of Doha, Qatar.

This will be the WTO's attempt to launch a new round of trade negotiations after the failure of the previous attempt at Seattle in December, 1999. If you're not quite sure where Qatar is, that's the general idea. Neither you nor your placard-waving mates are invited.

But the meeting in Qatar will be the next practical test in one of the great ideological debates of our times: whether globalisation is a conspiracy to advance the interests of multinational corporations at the expense of the world's poor, or whether increased trade and investment between the developed and developing countries is precisely what's needed to raise the living standards of people in poor countries.

At the forum meeting in Melbourne and in many speeches since, Peter Costello has vigorously contended that globalisation is good for the poor. Note this and keep reading.

The last round of WTO trade negotiations in 1993 included a multilateral agreement on Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property rights, known as TRIPS. Pushed by the Americans, its purpose was to extend the protection of nationally granted intellectual property rights - such as patents, copyright and trademarks - around the globe.

TRIPS includes some rather vaguely worded provisions accepting member-countries' right to safeguard their citizens' health. The developing countries have proposed that the Qatar meeting carry a declaration clarifying low-income countries' right to gain access to cheaper drugs to treat AIDS and other life-threatening illnesses.

Everything seemed on track until, just last month, the US and Switzerland popped up with a rival draft for the declaration, which seems to do little to advance the developing countries' cause and seems heavily influenced by the big multinational pharmaceutical companies' view of the world.

If the idea of the Americans and the Swiss coming to the defence of their drug companies' interests doesn't surprise you, maybe this will: so far, only three countries have thrown their support behind the rival declaration - Japan, Canada and ... Australia.

A spokesperson for the Minister for Trade, Mark Vaile, has rejected suggestions that Australia has moved closer to the pharmaceutical industry, and said the government is trying to bring the different parties together.

Well, maybe. My fear is that our support for the Americans on TRIPS is part of a deal where they've agreed to support us on something else - say, agricultural trade. Sell the poor countries' health down the river in defence of our farmers? Maybe, in this xenophobic election, that counts as putting Australia's interests first.

In trade negotiations, horse-trading and the pursuit of self-interest are unavoidable. Just so long as they don't masquerade as high and holy principle.

It's important to understand that there's nothing sacred about intellectual property rights. In a "free market" they wouldn't exist. Things such as patents represent governments intervening in a free market to confer on the inventor of some item a 20-year monopoly.

It's clearly in the public's interest for governments to confer such monopoly rights. If they didn't there'd be insufficient financial incentive for people to keep coming up with the inventions that improve our lives. This is obviously the case with drug companies. Inventing new drugs and testing them to the stage where they're accepted by the health authorities (another departure from the "free market", by the way), is risky and expensive - particularly when you include the cost of all the drugs that don't make it.

But because governments confer monopoly rights on private parties, governments retain the right to attach conditions, exceptions and limitations should they see this as in the public interest.

But now let's turn to TRIPS, which, in essence, takes the developed countries' nation-based patent and other intellectual property protection arrangements and obliges the developing countries to accept and police them. The clarifications to TRIPS that the developing countries are seeking would confirm their ability to use devices such as "compulsory licences" and "parallel imports" to gain cheaper access to certain essential, life-saving medicines to treat such things as HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and sleeping sickness.

It suits the drug companies to carry on as though the use of such devices is rampant socialism. Nonsense. The Americans themselves are heavy users of compulsory licences and we have incurred the Americans' ire by allowing parallel imports in the case of books and CDs.

What's more, our government has long used our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to prevent foreign drug companies from overcharging us they way they'd like to.

If Australia helps the Americans frustrate the poor countries' efforts to gain access to cheaper life-saving drugs, we will not only have added to the suffering in the world, but also have helped to confirm the (I believe mistaken) suspicion that globalisation is a conspiracy to benefit multinational companies.

And Peter Costello's own government will have given the lie to his repeated claim that globalisation is good for the world's poor.

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