World Trade Organisation Archives - Page 2 of 8 - Oxfam Policy & Practice

Briefing paper

All Costs, No Benefits: How TRIPS plus intellectual property rules in the US-Jordan FTA affect access to medicines

21/03/2007

4 documents

37 pages long

Languages: Arabic, English, French, Spanish

Keywords

Overview

The USA continues to impose TRIPS-plus rules on developing countries, thus preventing poor people from accessing inexpensive, generic medicines. Jordan was required under the terms of its WTO accession package and its free trade agreement (FTA) with the USA to introduce TRIPS-plus rules. Medicine prices have increased drastically, and TRIPS-plus rules were partly responsible for […]

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Briefing paper

Pricing Farmers out of Cotton: The costs of World Bank reforms in Mali

15/03/2007

3 documents

40 pages long

Languages: English, French, Spanish

Keywords

Overview

With global trade talks stalled at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), rich-country cotton subsidies remain unabated, hurting poor cotton farmers. World Bank led reforms to privatise the Malian cotton sector, including the adoption of a new price- setting mechanism, are further exacerbating the dire conditions in cotton-producing communities. A minimum level of price stability is […]

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Briefing paper

Patents Versus Patients: Five years after the Doha Declaration

14/11/2006

8 documents

Languages: Arabic, English, French, German, Spanish

Keywords

Overview

Five years ago, members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) signed a ministerial agreement to ensure that intellectual property rules would no longer obstruct developing countries’ efforts to protect public health. Since then, however, little has changed. Patented medicines continue to be priced out of reach for the world’s poorest people. Trade rules remain a […]

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Issue briefing

Thailand: American Bullying Puts Pharmaceutical Company Profits before the Health of Millions

21/06/2006

1 documents

8 pages long

Languages: English

Keywords

Overview

In November 2001, at the World Trade Organisation’s 4th ministerial conference in Doha, the finance ministers of the world reaffirmed that governments are free to take all necessary measures to protect public health. That means that a government has a right to override patents in an ’emergency’. One method of doing this is through ‘compulsory […]

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Briefing paper

Public Health at Risk: A US free trade agreement could threaten access to medicines in Thailand

01/04/2006

7 documents

29 pages long

Languages: English, French, Indonesian, Khmer, Spanish, Thai, Vietnamese

Keywords

Overview

New stringent drug patent and marketing rules being negotiated in a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the US and Thailand would limit competition and reduce access to affordable medicines in Thailand. This would threaten the future of existing successful Thai HIV/AIDS treatment programmes, which rely on inexpensive generic drugs, and thus deprive thousands of people […]

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Briefing paper

What Happened in Hong Kong? Initial analysis of the WTO Ministerial, December 2005

20/12/2005

2 documents

22 pages long

Languages: English, Portuguese

Keywords

Overview

The WTO Hong Kong ministerial meeting was a lost opportunity to make trade fairer for poor people around the world. Rich countries put their commercial interests before those of developing countries. Most of the difficult decisions were put off to a further meeting in early 2006, but it is far from clear why rich countries […]

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Briefing note

Blood From a Stone

15/12/2005

1 documents

10 pages long

Languages: English

Keywords

Overview

The tiny island Kingdom of Tonga in the South Pacific is about to make history, by joining the WTO on what are arguably the worst terms ever offered to any country. The appalling terms of Tonga’s accession package show that nothing has changed in the way the world’s smallest and most vulnerable economies are treated […]

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Briefing paper

Blood on the Floor: How the rich countries have squeezed development out of the WTO Doha negotiations

07/12/2005

2 documents

45 pages long

Languages: English, Spanish

Keywords

Overview

Four years on, the Doha Round looks increasingly unlikely to deliver on its promises to the world’s poor. Rich countries have sidelined development concerns and insisted on, among other conditions, the ‘blood on the floor’ rule, i.e. obtaining economically painful concessions from all countries, including poor ones. In agriculture, trade rules look set to remain […]

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Briefing paper

No Soft Landing: As China opens its markets, US subsidies are making life hard for cotton farmers

06/12/2005

1 documents

33 pages long

Languages: English

Keywords

Overview

China is the world’s biggest producer and consumer of cotton. The development of the textile industry since the 1990s has increased the demand for cotton and benefited millions of Chinese farmers. However, China’s dismantling of state-owned enterprises and liberalisation of its cotton sector as part of its WTO accession commitments have increasingly exposed Chinese farmers […]

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Briefing note

Mind the Gap: Countdown to Viet Nam’s accession to the WTO

01/12/2005

2 documents

9 pages long

Languages: English, Vietnamese

Keywords

Overview

Viet Nam is entering its final stages of accession negotiations. Although it is unlikely that it will achieve the goal of joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO) by the time of the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference in December, negotiators want a swift end to the process. Analysis of progress made between the two Working Party […]

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