Agriculture
Genetic patents threaten human rights and development

afrol.com, 11 September  -  International agricultural research centres - struggling for survival, may find themselves brought up before the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights by the poor they are pledged to help, new RAFI report warns. 

An Occasional Paper published on Saturday by RAFI (Rural Advancement Foundation International) 'In Search of Higher Ground' (the full text can be found at RAFI's web site) warns that the world's leading international public science institutions are in crisis and their inept patent policies and inexperience with multinational corporations could put them at odds with those their research is meant to serve. According to the study, public science patent policies could undermine the very concept of 'public goods' and the original premises which made it possible for agricultural centres to obtain more than 600,000 samples of farmers' seed varieties throughout the Third World. 

'Trojan Trade Reps'
Focusing on international agricultural research centres, the report argues that public science is the victim of declining financial support (often the result of the mistaken assumption that giant companies can do science better) and intense pressure from agribusiness to adopt patents on living materials and particularly, U.S.-style patent policies. Such policies will compromise or distort 'public goods' in favour of corporate interests. Asserting that international scientific bodies are 'genetically-incapable' of managing patent policies, the report warns that institutions are becoming 'Trojan trade reps' for the U.S. Government when they fail to acknowledge the sovereign right of countries and the human rights of farmers especially in the Third World- to access the technologies they need for their well-being. 

'International scientists seem to believe it is unethical to utilize patented technologies in countries where the patents are non-applicable without the permission of the patent-holder. If a company does not apply for patent protection in Ethiopia, Ethiopians have every right to avail themselves of the technology. That's international law,' Pat Mooney, RAFI's Executive Director, says. 'If public science fails to disseminate technologies that could be beneficial to Third World countries merely because they would offend patent-holders in other countries, they are siding with the multinationals against the poor. If they acquire licenses to use patented technologies and then pass on licensing restrictions to countries where the patent is invalid, they are, again, siding with the multinationals,' Mooney insists. 

'Public science has to decide who they are serving. They cannot become the Trojan trade reps of the multinationals.' 

Human Rights Violations? 
The RAFI report notes that both the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Human Rights Commission have recently warned that the World Trade Organization's TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property) agreement could be in conflict with more than one Human Rights covenant. In June, the UNDP's Human Development Report specifically criticized the TRIPS accord as a threat to Human Rights. On August 17th, the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights unanimously challenged TRIPS as impacting negatively on the rights of poor people to benefit from new technologies. 

'International Agricultural Research Centres, by submitting to the national patent laws of some Northern countries, are denying countries in the South access to potentially useful technologies, and/or imposing unethical constraints on their use, and/or misusing public financial contributions to pay patent-holders for technologies that are actually freely-available,' Hope Shand, RAFI's Research Director, states, 'This is unacceptable and it must not be permitted. The integrity of international public science is at stake.' 

'Hippocrates, we have a problem!' 
Despite its conclusion that international public science should not be allowed to set patent policy, the RAFI report is sympathetic to the conundrum facing researchers. 'These are good and decent people trying their best for world agriculture,' Pat Mooney acknowledges. 'They are caught between a rock and a hard place. If they ignore corporate patents they could face reprisals not only from the companies but also from the Northern governments who fund international science. If they acquiesce to corporate demands, farmers and consumers could - and should - protest their actions before the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Their predicament is not of their making,' Mooney adds. 'But they have the predicament nonetheless,' Hope Shand concurs, 'and they have to get themselves out of it. 

'Rather than being taken to the Human Rights Commissioner, they should join with those they wish to serve and ask Mary Robinson (the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights) to investigate the problem.' 

RAFI's report identifies three major steps that science networks such as the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) should take. 'First, CGIAR should join with Civil Society Organizations in asking the Human Rights Commission to investigate and advise on this conflict,' Shand says. 'Second, when the CGIAR holds its annual meeting in Washington this October, it should ask either UNDP or FAO to seek an advisory opinion from the World Court on the implications of patents on biological materials and the consequences for national sovereignty and Human Rights. Third,' Hope Shand concludes, 'CGIAR should join with others in seeking political solutions to the problem through a Special Session of the UN General Assembly on science and innovation.' 

28 Steps to Higher Ground: Although 'In Search of Higher Ground' emphasizes the perils of patenting and the failures of public science to meet the policy challenge, it also offers 28 specific steps that institutes could take to defend their interests. Among the 28 are several that would modify current patent regimes to safeguard public goods. There are also 'trade union' opportunities for public science to adopt collective bargaining strategies and make common cause with wider social movements. 'For scientists, a protest letter in Nature constitutes a primal scream. They just have no sense of political strategy or of policy alternatives,' Pat Mooney worries. 

Not all of RAFI's concerns are leveled at public scientists. 'As Civil Society Organizations, we have to decide whether we want to safeguard public goods and public research, or let these institutions be absorbed into corporate globalization,' Mooney continues, 'Most of us, quite rightly, disagree with the biotech strategy being pursued by many of these institutions and it is hard to sympathize with their problems. Nevertheless, international science has shown itself to be much more responsive to farmers' concerns in recent years.' 

'I think we have to fight first for the public's right to access the technologies they want,' says Shand, 'and to develop new technologies in the public domain - high-tech or wide-tech (farmer-led research). Then we have to confront the institutions with our dissatisfaction over their research methods and priorities. If they will join us before the Human Rights Commission - be 'doers' rather than be 'done to' - this could be the beginning of resurgence in public support for public science.' 

RAFI (The Rural Advancement Foundation International) is an international civil society organization based in Canada. RAFI is dedicated to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and to the socially responsible development of technologies useful to rural societies. RAFI is concerned about the loss of agricultural biodiversity, and the impact of intellectual property on farmers and food security. 

Source: RAFI

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