TPP 'secret' deal raises public health and litigation concerns

It is being seen as the mother of all trade deals. But the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) has public health advocates worried, as secrecy shrouds details of this pact.

Ministers of 12 countries including the United States, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Japan and Malaysia announced on Monday in the US that they have in place a “comprehensive” trade pact. The over-arching trade deal covers an “ambitious” range from supporting employment creation and retention to enhancing innovation, transparency, labour and environment protection, according to the United States Trade Representative’s office.

But public health advocates across the world have called for details of the deal to be made public, their key concerns being enhanced protection of intellectual property (IP) and the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provision.

A contentious feature, ISDS allows foreign investors to sue a Government internationally, if they felt that domestic policy had hurt their investment in the country. And enhanced IP brings with it concerns of increased research data protection and patent linkage with marketing approvals – measures that could encourage monopolistic behaviour and hurt public health.

Details are still not out and it is not clear on the commitments made between countries on data protection and linkages, observes Leena Menghaney with MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières or Doctors without Borders).

Indian generic drugs have been at the forefront, from HIV treatment to recent incidents on Hepatitis C drug Sofosbuvir, where patients from other countries have come to India to access treatment, as it was expensive in their country, she points out. The trade-pact could have measures that topple India’s capacity to make inexpensive medicines for itself and patients across the world, she said, calling for details to be made public.

Tobacco not included

On the ISDS front, tobacco has been carved out of this provision – but that has been a disservice to health, as it makes other aspects of health vulnerable for companies to exploit, she said. Health is not just about tobacco, there are medicines for lung cancer, for example that are very expensive, she added.

Canada and Australia that have faced the brunt of ISDS should have reformed this provision of the trade regime. With details of the pact still to be public, she said, India should stand up to the pact as it does not affect just public health but other aspects of trade, like banking and finance as well.

Dr PV Appaji with Pharmexcil (the body that promotes India’s drug exports) agrees that they were concerned that the pact could hurt India’s medicines exports to the ASEAN region. This has been raised with the Indian government, he said.

Expressing concern over the secret ‘in principle’ TPP deal, Dr Patricia Ranald, Coordinator of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network, said that non-publication of the text of the agreement may hide trade-offs on issues like medicines and corporate rights to sue governments.

“Australia has agreed to the inclusion of rights for foreign investors to sue governments in international tribunals if they can argue that a change in domestic law or policy ‘harms’ their investment, known as Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS). There are increasing numbers of such cases against health and environmental law, like the Philip Morris tobacco company case against Australia’s plain packaging law, which is still not finished after four years. Claimed safeguards have not prevented such cases in the past, and again the detail in the TPP is not available,” she said.

Governments have three months before the deal is sealed. “If this is such a good deal, the text should be released before it is signed by governments…,” said Dr Ranald.

jyothi.datta@thehindu.co.in

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