By: Richard Shillington

  The World Trade Organization (WTO) is restricting South Africa's access to the drug AZT, needed to treat AIDS. This means, essentially, that the organization is sentencing many poor South Africans to death. So how can cheerleaders for the WTO - many of whom are Canadians - continue to insist that the WTO's vision of globalized trade is good for the world's poor?
  What do AZT and AIDS have to do with the WTO and South Africa? Let's start from the beginning - with the grim statistics that describe South Africa's AIDS crisis, and the faint hope that's held out by AZT.
 

South Africa has 3 million people who are HIV positive. In some provinces, 20 to 30 per cent of newborns are HIV positive.

  South Africa's 40 million people include about 3 million who are HIV positive. In some provinces, 20 to 30 percent of newborns are HIV positive. AZT could greatly improve their chances. Not only does the drug limit the symptoms of AIDS; it also seems particularly useful in preventing the transmission of AIDS to the fetus.
  Faced with a human calamity, South Africa did what any parent might be expected to do. It bought AZT where it could afford it, bypassing the multinational pharmaceutical industry's patent protections. This led the WTO to demand sanctions because South Africa had violated its multi-national agreements.
  What tripped up the South Africans was (get ready for another anagram) something known as TRIPS. That stands for Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights. These trade rights are used by wealthy countries through the WTO to pressure poor countries to respect copyrights and patents. Even when it means that you can't afford AZT for your epidemic of HIV positive babies.
  In short, this story illustrates that globalization is not fundamentally about 'free' trade. No one wants trade without rules, where contracts and property rights are ignored - that amounts to piracy. But that's not the issue. The real issue is here is power; power which has been wielded, in this case, with a brutal single-mindedness and lethal results.
 

Trade rules are used to pressure poor countries to respect copyrights and patents. Even when it means you can't afford AZT to treat your epidemic of HIV-positive babies.

  Thus far globalization, as spelled out in the WTO's rules, has limited the power of governments to interfere with business. The trade rules say that governments must respect 'certain' rights - e.g. contracts and property rights, and in particular intellectual property rights.
  The same multi-lateral agreements could equally require companies and governments to respect human and environmental rights. Up until now, at least, citizens have let business and governments steer globalization to serve business interests. Citizens could demand that it also protect their rights but so far have said little - the protests in Seattle may be a start.
  And so, these are the kind of trade rules - where corporations have guaranteed freedoms but few social responsibilities - that allows the WTO to put the patent rights of multinational pharmaceutical companies ahead of the lives of newborns in South Africa. There is nothing in the rulebook that says pharmaceutical companies must make drugs like AZT available to poorer countries at less-than-First-World prices. There is nothing that compels them to do the decent or compassionate thing, and broker some kind of compromise that gets AZT legally into the hands of people who need it.
  But while corporations and WTO officials can rightly claim they are playing by the rules, it takes a real high-octane audacity to then claim that globalization is good for poor children.
  Unfortunately, Canadian ministers were some of the head cheerleaders in Seattle and they will continue thus so long as Canadians do not demand more. We citizens need to be sufficiently informed that politicians will see that it is in their interest to protect children in third world countries from globalization.
  Who's really responsible for this mess? An obvious answer is the WTO. But, ultimately, we citizens of industrialized countries are to blame. We have let an alliance of business and government create multi-national agreements conferring rights to business without tying them to responsibilities.
  Shame on us. Let it stop now.

Richard Shillington, Ph.D., is a statistician who specializes in the quantitative analysis of health, social and economic policy. He appears regularly before committees of the House of Commons and the Senate, and frequently provides commentaries for television, radio and newspapers on issues of taxation, human rights and social policy. Richard's Straight Goods column will appear weekly.