Joint UNAIDS/UNDP briefing highlights potential impacts of free trade agreements on public health

Jun 5 2012

"A new UNAIDS/UNDP joint issues brief [.pdf] highlights the potential impacts of free trade agreements on public health," UNAIDS reports in a feature story on its website. "The brief concludes that 'to retain the benefits of [flexibilities in the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)], countries at a minimum should avoid entering into free trade agreements that contain obligations that can impact on pharmaceutical price or availability,'" the article states. It adds that "the potential impact of a number of current or planned free trade agreement negotiations taking place across the world -- particularly affecting countries in the Asia and the Pacific region -- can hinder countries' rights to implement such flexibilities" (6/1).

"This report gives added ammunition to the opponents of the U.S. approach, which appears to include all of the eight non-U.S. countries in the [Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)] negotiation as well as a broad global civil society coalition," infojustice.org writes (Flynn, 6/1). In two separate interviews, ABC Radio Australia's Sen Lam speaks with Shiba Phurailatpam, regional coordinator of the Bangkok-based Asia Pacific Network of People Living with HIV, and Kajal Bhardwaj, an independent lawyer working in India on HIV health and human rights, about the issue (6/4).