The Hindu Business Line : WTO: India must focus on people movement

India should demand loosening of patent protection under TRIPS and freer movement of natural persons under GATS in the WTO, instead of harping on farm issues.

India has pleaded for reforming the international laws regarding Intellectual Property Rights and migration of natural persons at the Committee on `Globalisation and Interdependence' of the United Nations. India has alleged that IPR regimes are often used as tools to restrict, control and deny technologies, rather than to facilitate their transfer to the developing countries.

The objective of IPR protection is to provide the inventor an opportunity to recoup his investments in research and provide an incentive for putting more funds into research.

Transfer of tech

This model gets nullified if the technologies are held in close control and not transferred for larger benefit. Then research becomes a vehicle for impoverishment of the poor who have to perpetually pay high prices for new inventions. Thus, India has demanded that IPRs be integrated into the development dimension of the global economy. That is, IPRs should be loosened and technology access for the developing countries be improved.

India has also said that movement of natural persons should be made easier. The Indian delegate, Mr Anil Basu, said: "It is ironic that shrinking of the world as a result of technology and communications should be accompanied by evolution of controls that restrict movement of people of the developing world."

Impact of globalisation

The impact of globalisation is similar to the building of a dam. Farmers in command areas stand to gain while those in the submergence area stand to lose though the dam may be beneficial for the country as a whole. The losers are, therefore, compensated by the winners. That makes it a win-win situation for all the stakeholders.

Similarly, there are losers in the process of global integration. Many countries do not have the capacity to compete in the global markets. As a result their capital tends to flee. It is more profitable for an African entrepreneur to manufacture cars in Thailand than in Ivory Coast. The people of Ivory Coast, however, are not compensated for their loss. Rather they are hemmed within the national borders. They cannot move out to benefit from the opportunities being created in Thailand. But there exists no system to compensate the losers. The national borders are porous for capital but hard for labour. The result is that globalisation is a `loss' proposition for many players.

India has demanded that free movement of natural persons should be made easy to deal with this problem. Take the example of a dam. Farmers located in the submergence area are allowed to move freely in other areas of the country. An affected farmer can buy land in the command area and capture some of the benefits of irrigation. But the farmers of submergence areas are sure to suffer if they are not allowed to move to other areas.

WTO jurisdiction

The same applies to globalisation. People from loser countries should be allowed to migrate to winner nations in order to make globalisation a win-win situation for all the stakeholders. Both points raised by India at the United Nations are in the right direction. The irony is that these issues are outside the scope of the UN. They belong to the jurisdiction of the WTO. The IPR regime has been incorporated in the WTO in the TRIPS agreement and movement of natural persons is being negotiated in that forum under the GATS agreement.

The tragedy is that India does not raise these crucial issues in the WTO where it matters. India's focus here is on agriculture. The Doha Round is suspended because industrial countries are not willing to reduce the levels of domestic subsidies given to their farmers. It has not been suspended on the issue of IPRs or movement of natural persons. This strategy is counterproductive.

Indian farmers are likely to make only small gains if their demand for reduction of domestic subsidies is accepted by the industrial countries. Competition among developing countries will lead to only a marginal rise in the global prices of agricultural commodities even if industrial countries reduce the domestic subsidies. The prices of most agricultural commodities show a secular decline in the last two decades.

Dismantling subsidies

Some studies have pointed out that industrial countries actually stand to gain by dismantling these subsidies. The money being given away by their governments to the farmers can provide better returns if used in the development of services sector. Their problem is more of domestic politics. As far as economics is concerned, dismantling of domestic subsidies may be quite beneficial for the industrial countries and, if at all, only marginally so for the developing countries.

Instead of focusing on agriculture issues, which will benefit few, India should raise the patents and movement of natural persons the issues in the Doha Round.

(The author is a freelance writer and can be contacted at bharatj@nda.vsnl.net.in)