{"id":7928,"date":"2014-12-15T12:23:36","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T17:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aidslaw.ca\/site\/?p=7928"},"modified":"2022-10-04T16:43:45","modified_gmt":"2022-10-04T20:43:45","slug":"time-for-transparency-on-the-tpp","status":"publish","type":"news22","link":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/time-for-transparency-on-the-tpp\/","title":{"rendered":"Time for transparency on the TPP"},"content":{"rendered":"For the last five years, Canada and 11 other countries have been secretly negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), often described as \u201cNAFTA on steroids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among many other concerns, health groups have been sounding the alarm that access to affordable medicines for millions of people in the negotiating countries could be one of those things traded away \u2013 unless concerned citizens speak up. M\u00e9decins sans Fronti\u00e8res (Doctors Without Borders) has warned that the TPP could become \u201cthe most harmful trade pact ever for access to medicines in developing countries.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

These fears have been confirmed by several leaks of the intellectual property chapter<\/a> of the TPP, which would strengthen private rights for multinational pharmaceutical companies by expanding and prolonging their patent monopolies on drugs, at the expense of affordable medicines for millions of people.<\/p>\n

Another chapter would weaken the ability of Canada and other countries to prevent excessive drug pricing, by creating more opportunities for pharmaceutical companies to undermine provincial and federal government decisions on how drugs get covered under public health insurance programs.<\/p>\n

And yet another chapter on \u201cinvestment\u201d could give drug companies \u2013 in one of the most profitable industries in the world \u2013 greater rights to sue sovereign governments over \u201dinterference\u201d with their \u201cexpectations\u201d of profit. In fact, Canada is already facing an unprecedented suit by Eli Lilly under this sort of chapter in an existing trade agreement (NAFTA), which only highlights the dangers of including yet more such measures in the TPP.<\/p>\n

Giving in to these sorts of demands \u2013 which are being pushed aggressively by the US and Big Pharma \u2013 would hit people in developing countries the hardest. But it would be damaging and dangerous for Canadians as well, meaning even higher drug costs and therefore more pressure on provincial and federal governments, and private insurance plans, to deny coverage for the medicines Canadians need.<\/p>\n

Given what\u2019s at stake, the Legal Network and numerous other Canadian civil society groups have called previously on the federal government to be transparent about what\u2019s on the table \u2013 so far, to no avail. (See our earlier letter<\/a> and brief<\/a> to International Trade Minister Ed Fast here.)<\/p>\n

TPP negotiators met in Washington, D.C. again last week. At the same time, the Canadian HIV\/AIDS Legal Network joined 47 other civil society groups and experts from around the world in calling on trade ministers of the negotiating countries to put an end to the secret negotiations, by publishing both the current draft of the agreement and details of all nations’ negotiating positions.<\/b><\/p>\n

Click here to see our open letter to trade ministers<\/a> (sent December 11, 2014).<\/p>\n

\n

Richard Elliott<\/strong>
\nExecutive Director
\nCanadian HIV\/AIDS Legal Network","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the last five years, Canada and 11 other countries have been secretly negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), often described as \u201cNAFTA on steroids.\u201d Among many other concerns, health groups have been sounding the alarm that access to affordable medicines for millions of people in the negotiating countries could be one of those things traded … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"publication_topics":[145],"publication_language":[184,185],"class_list":["post-7928","news22","type-news22","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","publication_topics-access-to-medicines","publication_language-english","publication_language-french"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news22\/7928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news22"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news22"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news22\/7928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22365,"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news22\/7928\/revisions\/22365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"publication_topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication_topics?post=7928"},{"taxonomy":"publication_language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication_language?post=7928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}