Oct 30, 1990

PUGWASH FOR "PROPER BALANCE" BETWEEN IPRS AND GLOBAL WELFARE.

GENEVA, OCTOBER 26 (BY CHAKRAVARTHI RAGHAVAN)— The Executive Committee of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs has expressed its concern over the Uruguay Round TRIPs proposals and has called on participants to preserve a "proper balance" between reasonable safeguards for IPRs and maximising global welfare.

The statement of the Pugwash Executive Committee has been issued as a follow-up to the Pugwash workshop at Turin (October 11-13) on "Reviving the North-South Dialogue on Technology Transfer". Some 25 participants from 13 countries and representing various disciplines participated in the workshop.

The Pugwash Conferences, named after its first meeting place in Canada over the East-West nuclear weapon issues, deals with a wide range of science and development issues with participants from the scientific and other disciplines from East, West and the South.

The pioneering contribution of Pugwash in 1974, in preparing the first draft code of conduct for international transfer of technology served as a basic input into the international negotiations on a technology code in UNCTAD.

After considerable progress, and when only a few issues, in particular the provisions governing restrictive practices and applicable law and dispute settlement, remained to be settled and, as the South Commission has put it, "when mutual concessions by the North and South could have resolved them, further negotiations in UNCTAD were blocked by the North".

The Turin workshop had met to review progress in the UNCTAD negotiations, assess the problems faced in the stalled negotiations and propose a basis for revival of the dialogue.

The Turin meeting examined at considerable length the North's reversal of its agreed commitments and the underlying implications, according to the report of that meeting.

The Pugwash draft outline and the UNCTAD negotiations, the report of the Turin meeting noted, had centered on improving the access of the South to technology, reinforcing the South's negotiating position and strengthening its technological capabilities to take decisions on its future development.

"But the TRIPs negotiations aim at a completely opposite objective - strengthen the intellectual property system".

"They aim at tightening the control of the North's enterprises over technology, expanding the scope and coverage of the system, extending duration of patents, enlarging and strengthening the monopolistic rights of sellers of technology and thereby distorting free and more liberal trade in technology".

The implications of the TRIPs negotiations in the Uruguay Round were considered in this context, and the workshop suggested that the Pugwash executive committee should issue an urgent call to all governments and international organisations emphasising that the outcome of the negotiations should not constrain flexibility of Third World countries to design intellectual property systems to serve their own national development interests.

In the light of this, the Pugwash Executive Committee issued the statement and addressed it principally to the parties in the Uruguay Round negotiations.

"We are very much concerned", the Pugwash Executive Committee said in the statement, "by the implications of some of the proposals now under negotiation, which might result in hindering the transfer to developing countries of technology urgently needed for their economic development and in denying them the technological means most appropriate for dealing with environmental degradation and climatic threats on a global scale".

"We submit that it is imperative to preserve a proper balance between safeguarding to a reasonable extent intellectual property rights, and maximising the global welfare resulting from creative activities. Human creativity should be harnessed to the fullest extent for the benefit of global prosperity, equity, and environmental and climatic safety", the statement said.

"As a matter of principle, and in this context as a matter of practical wisdom, we emphasise the paramount importance of maintaining an open system of scientific and technological cooperation among all nations".

The Turin workshop was concerned over the inherent dangers of the current crisis in the negotiations and explored several options for overcoming the serious situation in the blocked negotiations and called for the revival of the North-South dialogue.

The workshop participants appreciated the contribution of Third World countries towards establishment of the Code of Conduct and urged the Third World countries to incorporate their own proposals on the Code in technology exchanges among themselves, and use the provisions of the Code as a basis for negotiating technology transactions with the North.

"This", the workshop felt, "would mark a significant advance towards the implementation in practice of most of the Code. The South countries should at the same give a very high priority to strengthening their technological capabilities".

The workshop also recommended renewal of the stalled negotiations in UNCTAD and bringing them to a successful compromise through mutual concessions by both the North and the South.

Towards this end, UNCTAD was requested to convene as soon as possible a meeting of an intergovernmental group to complete the text of the code for ratification by the UN diplomatic conference.

On the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, the workshop called on the Secretary-General of the UNCED to pay priority attention to the special technology needs of Third World countries.

The preparatory process for the Conference, the workshop said, should establish norms and standards for the transfer of relevant technologies to Third World countries under concessional terms.

Deforestation and protection of biodiversity and plant genetic resources should receive special consideration in the establishment of such norms and standards.

Pugwash was asked to involve itself closely in the preparatory process of the WCED, and consider on a continuing basis at its annual conferences the issues of technology needs of Third World countries and the Code of Conduct.

The Turin workshop also undertook a wide-ranging discussion on the central role of Science and Technology in Development including on the various technology information systems to facilitate South's access to technology and South-south cooperation and the various self-reliant processing industries set up in the South.

Concern was expressed at the workshop that the transfer of military technology exacerbated international and regional security problems. At the same time, it was urged that such an argument should not be used as an excuse against transfer of dual purpose technologies.

Restraint was necessary by countries of both the North and the South in regard to trade in military equipment and related technologies and in regard to deployment of extra regional forces in the Third World.

The workshop also paid special attention, in their global dimension and long-term perspective, to the problems of environmental degradation and the squandering of nature's bounties.

The priority given to the greenhouse effect and climatic change was contrasted with the challenge of large-scale hunger, preventable disease and social misery in the South.

"The cooperation of the South", it was stressed in the workshop, "was predicated upon the North's readiness to underwrite the enormous cost of the needed technological measures to combat the environmental problems, including mass poverty".

"Meeting the urgent basic needs of the billion hungry people in the South must receive an equal priority. These needs must also influence the selection of fields of scientific and technological research for early attention, preferably by joint research efforts of developed and developing countries".