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GENEVA (Dec. 20) - The United States Friday effectively blocked agreement on a global pact to allow poor countries to buy cheap drugs to tackle epidemics such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, diplomats said.
Envoys going into a late-night meeting at the World Trade Organization (WTO) just an hour before the deadline for an accord on the highly sensitive issue said there would be no deal, but talks would probably be resumed in the New Year.
They said that after a day of negotiations and intensive consultations with capitals to bend WTO patent rules, word had come from Washington that it could not agree to a compromise text because it was "too flexible."
They said the United States felt it could be interpreted as meaning drug patents could be ignored on treatments for a wide range of diseases.
In Washington, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said in a statement his country would continue to work with other WTO members to try to find a solution and said it would not challenge any country that broke WTO rules to export generic versions of patented drugs to poor countries that needed them.
"The United States has worked intensively to find a solution that will provide life-saving drugs to those truly in need, and will continue to work toward that end," Zoellick said.
The statement said the scope of the proposed pact in Geneva went beyond what countries agreed to last year in Doha, Qatar.
In talks over the past year, "some WTO members" and advocacy groups had tried to expand the "poor country epidemic" focus of the Doha declaration to allow much wealthier nations to override a wide range of drug patents, the statement said.
In a separate statement, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry said it supported the U.S. moratorium on dispute settlement actions against drug patent violations to help poor countries.
One non-governmental organization (NGO) campaigning for a deal in Geneva accused major powers of being driven by the interests of their pharmaceutical firms rather than by humanitarian considerations.
The group, Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF), said that when talks resumed, the United States and others like Switzerland and the European Union -- both of whom had accepted the draft -- should rethink their positions.
They must accept "a fair text that gives priority to people's health," MSF declared.
The failure, which could seriously rebound on the current Doha Round of overall free trade negotiations in the WTO, had been predicted earlier by several diplomats.
"I don't see the Americans giving in," said an Asian envoy. "They are under too much political pressure in Congress."
AFRICAN DISEASES ONLY NOT ACCEPTABLE
Envoys from other regions said a suggestion that an accord could specifically list only African diseases was not acceptable.
"We are developing countries too," said a negotiator from a small Latin American nation.
The outcome of the talks was likely to sour further the Doha Round atmosphere, already tense over problems in agriculture, where WTO countries have been officially described as "miles apart," and over failure to reach another agreement also by Friday on special treatment for poorer developing states.
Poorer countries wanted the drug deal to allow them to order copies of drugs developed by major pharmaceutical firms based in richer states from manufacturers in countries like India, Thailand and Brazil.
They saw an agreement as a touchstone of the sincerity of assurances from the big trading powers that they would emerge winners from the round.
Some diplomats from Africa, Asia and Latin America said that without a drugs agreement, they would not agree to compromise on other issues in the round whose success the big powers -- especially the United States -- see as vital to boost global business.
An outline drugs accord was first approved at a WTO ministerial conference in Doha 13 months ago, clearing the way for agreement to launch the new round aimed at lowering barriers to trade in goods and services.
But since then, efforts in several meetings between the key players have failed to hone down details into a pact pleasing all sides.
2nd article:
An Anti-Life Crusade
Editorial from The New York Times
Asia is expected to be the site of the next AIDS explosion. Yet at a United Nations population conference in Bangkok this week the American delegation tried to block an endorsement of condom use to prevent AIDS. It's not often that a vote is taken at a U.N. meeting, where consensus is usually the goal. But this time participants voted -- and the other nations united in striking down the American position.
By now, embarrassing behavior by the Bush administration at international meetings on women, health and the environment has become almost routine. The consequences, however, go beyond resentment and ridicule. Mr. Bush has concluded that family planning and sex education abroad -- including AIDS education -- can be sacrificed to please the far right without angering Americans who want to keep abortion legal here. Assistant Secretary of State Gene Dewey said in Bangkok that the U.S. "supports the sanctity of life from conception to natural death," a statement, we suspect, the administration would not dare make with the cameras rolling at home.
Washington tried to strike from the conference's document endorsements of "reproductive health service" and "reproductive rights" because these can include abortion and abortion counseling in nations where the procedure is legal. The United States also objected to promoting condom use among adolescents to prevent AIDS, on the theory that it encourages underage sex. Abstinence is the goal, says the administration. But there is plenty of evidence that teaching abstinence doesn't work -- and the alternative for young women in Asia is not only pregnancy but, increasingly, AIDS.
Teenage girls get AIDS largely because they are pressured into sex by older men. To deny them access to condoms and counseling about how to negotiate safe sex is a deadly strategy. Whatever the Bush administration believes about when life begins, it should not advocate measures that increase the possibility it will end in early adulthood.
To explain this more clear, the US is REFUSING to let poor countries make cheap drugs so their people can afford them, because it would interfere with US based pharmacuital companies profits.
Envoys going into a late-night meeting at the World Trade Organization (WTO) just an hour before the deadline for an accord on the highly sensitive issue said there would be no deal, but talks would probably be resumed in the New Year.
They said that after a day of negotiations and intensive consultations with capitals to bend WTO patent rules, word had come from Washington that it could not agree to a compromise text because it was "too flexible."
They said the United States felt it could be interpreted as meaning drug patents could be ignored on treatments for a wide range of diseases.
In Washington, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said in a statement his country would continue to work with other WTO members to try to find a solution and said it would not challenge any country that broke WTO rules to export generic versions of patented drugs to poor countries that needed them.
"The United States has worked intensively to find a solution that will provide life-saving drugs to those truly in need, and will continue to work toward that end," Zoellick said.
The statement said the scope of the proposed pact in Geneva went beyond what countries agreed to last year in Doha, Qatar.
In talks over the past year, "some WTO members" and advocacy groups had tried to expand the "poor country epidemic" focus of the Doha declaration to allow much wealthier nations to override a wide range of drug patents, the statement said.
In a separate statement, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry said it supported the U.S. moratorium on dispute settlement actions against drug patent violations to help poor countries.
One non-governmental organization (NGO) campaigning for a deal in Geneva accused major powers of being driven by the interests of their pharmaceutical firms rather than by humanitarian considerations.
The group, Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF), said that when talks resumed, the United States and others like Switzerland and the European Union -- both of whom had accepted the draft -- should rethink their positions.
They must accept "a fair text that gives priority to people's health," MSF declared.
The failure, which could seriously rebound on the current Doha Round of overall free trade negotiations in the WTO, had been predicted earlier by several diplomats.
"I don't see the Americans giving in," said an Asian envoy. "They are under too much political pressure in Congress."
AFRICAN DISEASES ONLY NOT ACCEPTABLE
Envoys from other regions said a suggestion that an accord could specifically list only African diseases was not acceptable.
"We are developing countries too," said a negotiator from a small Latin American nation.
The outcome of the talks was likely to sour further the Doha Round atmosphere, already tense over problems in agriculture, where WTO countries have been officially described as "miles apart," and over failure to reach another agreement also by Friday on special treatment for poorer developing states.
Poorer countries wanted the drug deal to allow them to order copies of drugs developed by major pharmaceutical firms based in richer states from manufacturers in countries like India, Thailand and Brazil.
They saw an agreement as a touchstone of the sincerity of assurances from the big trading powers that they would emerge winners from the round.
Some diplomats from Africa, Asia and Latin America said that without a drugs agreement, they would not agree to compromise on other issues in the round whose success the big powers -- especially the United States -- see as vital to boost global business.
An outline drugs accord was first approved at a WTO ministerial conference in Doha 13 months ago, clearing the way for agreement to launch the new round aimed at lowering barriers to trade in goods and services.
But since then, efforts in several meetings between the key players have failed to hone down details into a pact pleasing all sides.
2nd article:
An Anti-Life Crusade
Editorial from The New York Times
Asia is expected to be the site of the next AIDS explosion. Yet at a United Nations population conference in Bangkok this week the American delegation tried to block an endorsement of condom use to prevent AIDS. It's not often that a vote is taken at a U.N. meeting, where consensus is usually the goal. But this time participants voted -- and the other nations united in striking down the American position.
By now, embarrassing behavior by the Bush administration at international meetings on women, health and the environment has become almost routine. The consequences, however, go beyond resentment and ridicule. Mr. Bush has concluded that family planning and sex education abroad -- including AIDS education -- can be sacrificed to please the far right without angering Americans who want to keep abortion legal here. Assistant Secretary of State Gene Dewey said in Bangkok that the U.S. "supports the sanctity of life from conception to natural death," a statement, we suspect, the administration would not dare make with the cameras rolling at home.
Washington tried to strike from the conference's document endorsements of "reproductive health service" and "reproductive rights" because these can include abortion and abortion counseling in nations where the procedure is legal. The United States also objected to promoting condom use among adolescents to prevent AIDS, on the theory that it encourages underage sex. Abstinence is the goal, says the administration. But there is plenty of evidence that teaching abstinence doesn't work -- and the alternative for young women in Asia is not only pregnancy but, increasingly, AIDS.
Teenage girls get AIDS largely because they are pressured into sex by older men. To deny them access to condoms and counseling about how to negotiate safe sex is a deadly strategy. Whatever the Bush administration believes about when life begins, it should not advocate measures that increase the possibility it will end in early adulthood.
To explain this more clear, the US is REFUSING to let poor countries make cheap drugs so their people can afford them, because it would interfere with US based pharmacuital companies profits.
