Vietnam hosted the seventh round of Trans Pacific Partnership Negotiations from June 20-24 in Ho Chi Min City. The US Trade Representative issued a press release announcing “step-by-step progress,” and said that negotiators “reviewed new proposals that the United States and other TPP countries tabled this round; including on intellectual property, transparency, telecommunications, customs, environment; and advanced their efforts to consolidate the various proposals that the countries put forward in previous rounds.”
On June 23, the Asia Pacific Network of Positive People issued a statement criticizing the U.S. for abandoning its recent pledge at the U.N. to protect TRIPS flexibilities necessary for access to medicines in developing countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia. Excerpt:
Leaked negotiation texts of the TPPA show that the US is pushing intellectual property provisions far in excess of what Vietnam and Malaysia have agreed to in the World Trade Organisation’s Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights or TRIPS. Known as ‘TRIPS-plus’ these measures are contrary to the Doha Declaration which re-affirmed that TRIPS “can and should be interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO member’s right to protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for all.”
In the week leading up to the round, the US Generic Pharmaceutical Association wrote President Obama asking that the intellectual property provisions in the TPP adhere to the 2007 trade policy compromise reached between Congressional Democrats and the Bush administration, and arguing that “it is premature to include provisions relating to biologics in any trade agreement.”
