GDAE Working Paper No. 09-01 Resources, Rules and International Political Economy
the Preamble [of the TRIPS Agreement].” Special Discussion on Intellectual Property and Access to
Medicines, June 2001 (IP/C/M/31).
22The formal proposal for a declaration was made by the Africa Group in alliance with Bangladesh,
Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia,
Jamaica, Pakistan, Paraguay, Philippines, Peru, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Venezuela (IP/C/W/296). A number
of other developing countries articulated similar positions in the WTO Council without formally endorsing
the Africa Group’s proposal.
23WT/MIN(01)/DEC/W/2, 14 November 2001, hereafter referred to as the “Doha Declaration.”
24Shadlen, “Patents and Pills, Power and Procedure.”
25The US makes the adoption of TRIPS Plus policies a condition for signing regional and bilateral trade
agreements (RBTAs), for example, but at least in those agreements the US also makes “WTO Plus”
concessions in terms of market access (Shadlen, “Exchanging Development for Market Access”).
26Andrew P. Cortell and James W. Davis, Jr., “How Do International Institutions Matter? The
Domestic Impact of International Rules and Norms,” International Studies Quarterly 40 (December 1996):
451-478.
27Frederick M. Abbott, “The WTO Medicines Decision: World Pharmaceutical Trade and the Protection
of Public Health,” The American Journal of International Law 99 (2005): 317-358; Duncan Matthews,
“WTO Decision on Implementation of Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and
Public Health: A Solution to the Access to Essential Medicines Problem?” Journal of International
Economic Law 7 (2004): 73-107; Duncan Matthews, “From the August 30, 2003 WTO Decision to the
December 6, 2005 Agreement on an Amendment to TRIPS: Improving Access to Medicines in Developing
Countries?” Intellectual Property Quarterly 10 (2006): 91-130.
28To buttress the point about developing countries’ inability to introduce changes to TRIPS, one could
note on-going - and thus far unsuccessful - efforts to make disclosure of origin in patent applications a
requirement or to buttress the system of technical assistance.
29 This is beginning to change, of course, with the rise of TNCs from developing countries, but this
phenomenon is fairly new and remains, in the grand picture, marginal.
30Jeff Frieden “Third World Indebted Industrialization: International Finance and State Capitalism in
Mexico, Brazil, Algeria, and South Korea,” International Organization 35 (Summer 1981): 407-431.
31In fact, the earlier in the 1980s, prior to the launch of the Uruguay Round, the US lodged a GATT
dispute against Canada over the latter’s foreign investment regulations. Specifically, the US claimed that
Canada’s local content requirements, which demanded that firms source a given percentage of their inputs
from local suppliers, constituted a non-tariff measure that illegally restricted trade. The US won the case,
and then sought to generalize the ruling with an agreement on investment in the Uruguay Round.
32Mohamed Ariff, “TRIMs: A North-South Divide or a Non-Issue?” World Economy 12 (September
1989): 347-360; V.N. Balasubramanyam, “Putting TRIMs to Good Use,” World Development 19
(September 1991): 1215-1224; David Greenaway, “Why are we Negotiating on TRIMs?” in David
Greenaway et al., ed., Global Protectionism (Macmillan, 1991): 145-167. United Nations Development
Program, Making Global Trade Work for People (London: Earthscan, 2003): chapter 12.
33The compromise was based on a proposal made jointly by Colombia and Switzerland, which focused
on assessing the direct trade effects of investment measures, and not the measures themselves.
34The reference here is to the US challenge to local content requirements in Canada’s sectoral
automotive policy (see above, note 32). It is also worth noting that many developing countries, as part of
their autonomous liberalization processes and efforts to attract DFI in new sectors for export, were already
removing many regulations on foreign investors. In fact, some countries - independently of the WTO -
now present investors with completely different sets of incentives in the form of preferential tax treatment
on imported inputs. Thus, instead of regulating foreign investors to promote local suppliers, many countries
now promote exports at the expense of local suppliers.
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