ALIFAR to support members in Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations
Chilean, Mexican and Peruvian governments urged not to accept IP protection measures that erode TRIPS flexibilities
ALIFAR, the Latin American generic pharmaceutical association, has announced that it has ‘decided to collectively support’ its associations from Chile, Mexico and Peru during Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations.
The announcement follows a three-day meeting in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. ALIFAR has issued a statement encouraging the Chilean, Mexican and Peruvian Governments ‘not to accept new and higher IP rights protection and enforcement standards that erode TRIPS’ flexibilities’.
‘In that context, ALIFAR will join efforts with those advocacy groups sharing its strategic vision about intellectual property, access to medicines and public health,’ the statement said.
‘The decision from the entire region to support advocacy on TPP is a reflection of the Association’s acceptance that TPP does not only affect the countries negotiating the agreement,’ said Sean Flynn, Associate Director of the American University Washington College of Law Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, who presented at the ALIFAR meeting where the resolution was adopted.
‘TPP, like the Anticounterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) before it, is being negotiated with the explicit intent to ultimately export its standards much more broadly — first to all APEC countries, and ultimately all countries in the world. Thus, all countries have an interest in working to open its process to observation and participation by the broader public, as well as an interest in heading it off as a vehicle for crafting new TRIP-plus intellectual property rules that will be sold as the new “gold standard” in a proliferation of new forums.’
ALIFAR represents 14 national associations of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, and more than 250 pharmaceutical manufacturers in Latin America.
