Yesterday, filings were submitted in a notice and comment process for the USTR’s “Special 301” program, which is a process through which the USTR unilaterally threatens sanctions on foreign countries for failing to adhere to U.S. demands on domestic intellectual property regulation (even when not contained in any international agreement). The submissions on behalf of various groups of public interest advocates argue that past use of the Special 301 program have: violated the World Trade Organization agreement; harmed the interests of poor countries in accessing affordable medicines; threaten medicine pricing programs abroad that are identical to state operated Medicaid reimbursement programs in the U.S.; and failed to adhere to global best practices on copyright polic.

PIJIP worked with academics, global health advocates, state health officials and copyright advocacy organizations file submissions, three subissions:

We have created a page here – http://infojustice.org/special-301/2011-special301comments with comments from some of the groups with whom we are allied.  All comments received by USTR are being made available at http://www.regulations.gov (enter “ustr-2010-0037” in the search feild to access the Special 301 Comments).