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Why ACTA is even worse than you thought: ACTA and Access to Medicines 

ACTA is a threat to generic medicines and to the millions of people worldwide who rely on them to get affordable treatments, and all so that the big pharmaceutical companies retain and extend their monopoly. What do the lives of poor people and matters of public health mean compared to the need of these companies to rake in even more billions? Not much apparently.

The Greens/EFA Internet Core Group in the European Parliament, and a collection of its individual members,2 commissioned this analysis of potential impacts of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) 3 on access to medicines in developing countries.”4 On the whole, ACTA negotiators created an agreement that shifts international “hard law” rules and “soft law” (…) In doing so, it increases the risks and consequences of wrongful searches, seizures, lawsuits and other enforcement actions for those relying on intellectual property limitations and exceptions to access markets, including the suppliers of legitimate generic medicines. This, in turn, is likely to make affordable medicines more scarce and dear in many countries.  

The ACTA process and substance is counter to two sets of specific instructions contained in European Parliament resolutions and supported by international human rights law.

(1) First, the negotiation disregarded specific Parliament instructions stating that processes for international law making impacting access to medicines and other important social interests be open, transparent and participatory.

(2) Second, the substance of the Agreement violates Parliament demands that trade agreements in general, and ACTA specifically, not include “TRIPS-plus” measures that may restrict the global trade in affordable medicines. ACTA provisions that are TRIPS-plus and could restrict access to essential medicines in developing countries and elsewhere

Read also: Secret plans to criminalize generic medicines could hurt poor countries and people ”The lack of transparency increases suspicions that the Agreement under negotiation is on behalf of narrow corporate interests”

How To Act Against ACTA: Contact Members of the European Parliament and Help Spread the Word!