Corporate accountability

1. Corporate accountability • “Hard law” offers limited tools • “Soft law” includes CSR, voluntary codes and initiatives, consumer awareness campaigns, certification schemes • Upsides: • Codes of conduct are useful, but require action by NGOs, consumers to hold them to codes (Rodriguez-Garavito 2006) • Downsides: • Fox tending the henhouse • Whose information is credible? • Vast power differences

2. Corporate accountability • Many soft law initiatives today rely on market-based campaigning: new possibilities, but also new questions for human rights • http://walmartstores.com/Video/?id=1417 • Possibility: direct consumer action • Concerns • How does this change role of human rights organization: product promoters? • Independence • Credibility of information

3. Trade Agreements and Human Rights

4. Trade and Human Rights • Why is trade a human rights issue? • At the heart of the debate= visions of development • Human rights concerns in trade agreements 4. Case study of IP in CAFTA

5. 1. Why is trade a human rights issue? • Trade sanctions can (arguably) be a means of enforcing human rights • Trade and investment flows affect the economy, can provide solutions for human rights challenges • Structure of trade relations determines who benefits: how is trade conducted? • Often the debates about trade center around FTA’s, but in fact FTA’s are just one piece of the puzzle

6. International Commercial Law • Overlapping legal orders • National legislation, sometimes passed as condition of foreign aid or loans • WTO • International commercial treaties

7. 2. At the heart of the trade debate • Development model based on market-driven growth • Benefits some sectors (there are winners and losers in LatAm) • Limits national decisionmaking about economy • Leads to concerns about sovereignty • Challenge to alternate development models

8. Guadalupe Urbina, “A Hundred Free Birds” The donkey tied up And the tiger loose The wife married And the husband single The country offers cheap labor To whatever foreign industry that wants to buy it The donkey’s tied up And the tiger is loose I’m tilling the earth Combing the seas I turn on the machines, I cure the bodies, I turn on the country and the tiger is loose El burro amarrado, y el tigre suelto La esposa casada, el marido soltero La patria ofrece mano de obra barata A industria extranjera que quiera comprarla El burro amarrado Y el tigre suelto Yo haciendo la tierra Arañando los mares Enciendo las maquinas, curo los cuerpos, Yo enciendo la patria y el tigre anda suelto

9. Better a hundred free birds, flying in these skies Even though the skies sometimes cloud up with storms, they’re ours A hundred free birds are worth more than one tied up by the foot Locked in a cage without water, without light, without sky There are things that aren’t going well at home We need oxygen in here But the maquiladoras don’t clean the air Their tiger is loose and my house is falling down Más valen 100 pájaros libres volando bajo este cielo Que a veces tiene tormentas, nubarrones, pero es nuestro Más vale 100 pájaros libres que uno atado de la pata Apagado en una jaula sin agua, sin luz, sin cielo Hay cosas que en casa No caminan bien Aquí adentro hace falta oxígeno Pero las maquilas no limpian mi aire Su tigre anda suelto y mi casa se cae

10. My country may be small, but it’s taken work to construct For her I’ve paid taxes, done duties Her electric energy, her water systems, and her health systems belong to me. Better a hundred free birds, flying in these skies Even though the skies sometimes cloud up with storms, they’re ours A hundred free birds are worth more than one tied up by the foot Locked in a cage without water, without light, without sky Mi patria es pequeña, pero me ha costado Por ella he pagado impuestos y carreras A mi me pertenece su energia electrica, su sistemas de agua
y los de la salud. Más valen cien pajaros libres
 Volando bajo este cielo
 Que a veces tiene tormentas, nubarrones, pero es nuestro
 Más valen cien pajaros libres
 Que uno atado de una pata
 O apagado o en una jaula sin agua, sin luz sin cielo.

11. There are rules I keep And weapons I don’t buy Wars I don’t finance And that I can’t invent Everything I eat, I plant in my garden It’s not easy to keep this peace And if we’re talking about treaties, I decide for myself what I want to give up There are no real negotiations with such disadvantages David may not be Goliath, but he knows how to think Hay reglas que guardo 
 y armas que no compro
 Guerras que no pago y no puedo inventar
 Todo lo que como lo siembro en mi patio
 Me cuesta muy caro conservar mi paz

 Y si de tratados se trata decido
 Por mi propia cuenta lo que quiero dar
 No hay negocioaciones cuando hay desventajas
 David no es Goliat pero sabe pensar

12. Who’d ever think of Abandoning the home you own, Leaving it for others and going to rent elsewhere? …. The tiger is loose But even the donkey knows how to sit down and refuse to move. Who’d ever think of a river without a watershed Grains without a plain on which to flourish? Who’d ever think of pretending to be someone else Instead of being what you really are? A quien se le ocurre abandonar la casa, 
Dejar que entren otros e irse a alquilar
.... el tigre anda suelto
 Pero no hay burro tonto que no se sepa sentar

 A quien se le ocurre un río sin cauce
 Un grano sin campo para florecer
 A quien se le ocurre intentar ser otro
 En lugar de ser lo que realmente es?

13. Better a hundred free birds, flying in these skies Even though the skies sometimes cloud up with storms, they’re ours A hundred free birds are worth more than one tied up by the foot Locked in a cage without water, without light, without sky… Más valen cien pajaros libres
 Volando bajo este cielo
 Que a veces tiene tormentas, nubarrones, pero es nuestro
 Más valen cien pajaros libres
 Que uno atado de una pata
 O apagado o en una jaula sin agua, sin luz, sin cielo…

15. Sí al TLC • http://youtube.com/watch?v=EPRpYZKEPiw

16. 3. Human Rights concerns in free trade agreements Free trade = removal of tariffs and barriers and other “market distortions” In theory, this should produce: • Reduced prices • Wider consumer choices How does this mesh with human rights reality? • In practice, a lot of what gets called free trade is not • Bottom line: look beyond the label “free trade” to actual policies • Should everything be a commodity?

17. Trade Agreements in the Americas Human rights concerns: • Lack of parity (e.g., agricultural subsidies) => dumping • Establish institutions that circumvent democratic checks and balances • Investor-state arbitration (Chapter 11 of NAFTA, Chapter 10 of CAFTA) • In some cases, limit state’s ability to provide services in ways that may threaten soc/ec rights • Labor, environmental chapters weak

18. Trade Agreements in the Americas Growing controversy around “free” trade model in Americas Model currently stalled: • NAFTA 1994 • US- Chile 2003 • CAFTA 2005 • US- Peru 2007 • Agreements with Colombia, Panama (yet to be ratified) • FTAA originally scheduled for January 1, 2005; stalled

20. Intellectual Property, Medicines, and the Right to Health: A CAFTA Case Study

21. Intellectual property • Why is this a human rights issue? • History of IP • WTO TRIPS Agreement 1994 • Doha Declaration 2001 • “TRIPS-plus provisions” in free trade agreements began after Doha

22. Intellectual property in Central America CAFTA negotiations conclude WTO TRIPS Doha declaration 2001 2003 1994 1995 2000 Central America joins WTO, adopts TRIPS Deadline for Central American countries to become TRIPS-compliant Central American countries begin to adopt reforms to comply with CAFTA

23. HIV/AIDS in CAFTA countries • Prior to CAFTA: 1 in 6 people who need antiretrovirals received them • Generic treatment: $230 per patient, per year • Brand-name drugs: $2,000-2,500 per patient, per year

24. Under TRIPS Patent requested Product enters market Patent granted Patent expires -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23… Synthesis Preclinical phase Clinical Phase I Clinical Phase II Clinical Phase III Health registry. Monopoly

25. Under TRIPS-plus Product enters market Patent requested Patent granted Test data protection (5 years) Patent extension -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23… Synthesis Preclinical Phase Clinical Phase I Clinical Phase II Clinical Phase III Health registry 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11… Monopoly

26. Who opposes IP rights in FTA’s? • Amnesty International • Oxfam • Doctors without Borders • World Health Organization • 11 members of US Congress in January 2005 “The test data secrecy/market exclusivity rules will slow the introduction of generic drugs, decrease competition, raise prices, and hinder access to life-saving medicines in the DR-CAFTA countries.” • 13 members of US Congress in November 2005 • Ministers of health in 10 South American countries in May 2006

27. What do defenders of TRIPS-plus say to such critiques? USTR: “CAFTA expressly states that nothing in the agreement will affect a country’s ability to take measures necessary to protect public health.” Argument that CAFTA/AFTA increase access by encouraging major pharmaceuticals to register drugs in small markets

28. What’s at stake?

29. Their lives are not for sale