Press Release: India – European Union Free Trade Agreement – Kills People Living with HIV

 

Finalisation of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and European Union is due at the end of April. Under negotiation since 2009, the agreement will include a number of regulations relating to Intellectual Property Rights. There remains a significant risk that these regulations, if approved, will jeopardise the production of essential &affordable generic medicines for a range of health issues including HIV, cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases. They pose a threat to India's capacity to produce and export generic drugs, drugs which are significantlylower in price than those manufactured by Multi-National Pharmaceutical Companies (patented drugs).

Due to pressure and monitoring from many civil society organizations all over the world, a number of harmful IP protectionclauses have been removed from the agreement. The EU, however, still insists on the inclusion of a number of clauses that will seriously undermine and limit access to generic medicines. One such clause will require the implementation of Intellectual Property Enforcement Measures that will limit the market of generic medicines. It will do so by allowing the seizure of generic medicines from customs and their destruction based on claims of patent infringement. Under the proposed clause, this action can be taking without having to wait for a court decision examining whether the patent infringement claim is justified.

The proposed regulation on Investment Rules, will further jeopardize access to essential and affordable medicines. As pushed for by the EU, this regulation will leave India exposed to legal action by multi-national pharmaceutical companies if the Indian Government if India where to implement domestic investment related policies that these Pharmaceuticalcompany believe infringe on their patent rights.

Due to this situation, we as community of people living with HIV and civil society organization focusing on HIV based in Jakarta, stand up in solidarity for people living with HIV in India, and strongly oppose the threats to access to anti-retroviral drugs that will becaused by India – EU FTA. We demand for European Union to:

1. Cancel all clauses in EU-India FTA negotiation related to Intellectual Property Rights that will jeopardise the access to generic ARV for PLHIV community all over the world.
2. Cease all action and efforts that aim to only benefit multi-national pharmaceutical companies through economic pressure on resource poor countries in bilateral, regional or multilateral agreements.
3. Prove the EU’s commitment to human rights by putting pressure on multi-national pharmaceutical companies based in European Union to reduce the prices of essential medicines in the market.

In Solidarity,

For more information contact:

Nazarudin Latief (FK2N - Coordinator) Telp. +6282111120055 

Aditya Wardhana (Koalisi AIDS Indonesia ) Telp. +6285814714769

#ODHABerhakSehat

Aditya Wardhana

Indonesia AIDS Coalition

Phone: +62 21 70 8888 27

Mobile: +62 858 147 147 69

Skype: awardhana

Website: www.iac.or.id / www.odhaberhaksehat.org

"Promoting transparency, accountability and civil participation on AIDS response"