The greens are particularly worried about the ethical and
ecological
implications of the growing legal trend to accept the
patenting of
life forms.
According to Martin Khor, director of Third World Network,
Article
27(3)(b) of the WTO's Trade-Related Intellectual Property
Rights
(TRIPS) agreement ''will be the key to the next century,
which will
be dominated by biotechnology and genetic engineering".
The paragraph essentially covers the right to patent life
forms, but
does so in trade-law language that is almost indecipherable
to the
layman.
It reads: ''Members may also exclude from patentability
plants and
animals other than micro-organisms, and essentially biological
processes for the production of plants and animals other
than
non-biological and micro-biological processes. However,
members shall
provide for the protection of plant varieties either by
patents or by
an effective sui generis system or by any combination
thereof."
The article is open to wide interpretation but, according
to Khor,
essentially means that member states can patent life forms,
and
obliges them to protect plant varieties to the satisfaction
of
countries such as the US. It will be open to review in
1999.
''The key thing is that countries must be allowed the right
not to
patent life forms," Khor said.
Environmentalists are also concerned that TRIPS could prevent
the
transfer of environmentally-sound technology to developing
countries,
and that it may clash with the provisions of the Biodiversity
Convention, which has its own set of intellectual property
rules.
Another issue surrounding TRIPS and biological patenting
is that of
fairness.
''Biological resources and the knowledge of how to use
them are a
part of the heritage for indigenous people all over
the world," notes
Josie Fernandes, Asia-Pacific representative
of Consumers International.
''But TRIPS does not protect their property rights. Meanwhile,
if a
company uses a small biological process to add value to
some life
form, they can say it belongs to them."
''TRIPS tends to recognise only the Western industrialised
model of
innovation and to ignore the more informal, community-based
system of
innovation through which southern hemisphere farmers produce,
select,
improve and breed a diversity of crop and livestock varieties,"
says
a Third World Network report.
Fernandes and other consumers are also worried that TRIPS
will make
pharmaceutical products simply too expensive for most
people in
developing countries.
''TRIPS imposes phenomenal obligations on developing countries,"
adds
Consumer International's Phil Evans. ''They have to get
IPR laws,
courts and administrative systems."
''Intellectual property should not be a trade issue, but
a national
policy issue," Evans said. ''Strict copy-write laws simply
doesn't go
with the way we as consumers operate. Many people who
copy materials
wouldn't buy it otherwise."
The consumer advocate says that it should not be assumed
that
intellectual property rights are needed to spur creativity
and
development, noting that the Internet has spawned ''phenomenal
creativity" without profit incentives.
A more difficult issue for consumer groups is whether the
WTO should
support talks on competition policy - that is, on whether
the
existence of national monopolies form a barrier to trade.
''Monopolies are bad for consumers, but at least with national
monopolies capital does not leave the country, and we
have some
control over them," Fernandes said. ''The government can
intervene
because the consumer is also the voter. ''But if the monopoly
is held
by a transnational corporation, what control do you have?"