by Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite
briefing | published September 2004 | summary | full document | PDF
When TRIPS was signed in 1994, the United States, Europe and Japan dominated the world's software, pharmaceutical, chemical and entertainment industries. The rest of the world had little to gain by agreeing to these terms of trade for intellectual property. They did so because a failure of democratic processes nationally and internationally enabled a small group of men within the United States to capture the US trade-agenda-setting process, to draft intellectual property principles that became the blueprint for TRIPS and to crush resistance through US trade power.
by Sumati Nair and Preeti Kirbat with Sarah Sexton
briefing | published June 2004 | summary | full document | PDF
This briefing evaluates the 1994 UN International Conference on Population and Development. It assesses several processes that affect women's reproductive and sexual rights and health: the decline and collapse in health services; neo-liberal economic policies and religious fundamentalisms; and development policies underpinned by neo-Malthusianism.
by Sarah Sexton
presentation | published 9-11 May 2003 | summary | full document
The World Trade Organisation's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) could have a significant effect on human health, and health care services.
by Sarah Sexton
briefing | published July 2001 | summary | full document | PDF
by Sarah Sexton
briefing | published October 1999 | summary | full document | PDF
Most discussions about human embryo cloning focus on ethics and potential health benefits. In the process, the many social, economic and environmental aspects of health and disease are increasingly hidden, while issues such as how the potential benefits of biotech would be obtained and distributed are sidelined. It has therefore become hard to raise key questions about the increased geneticisation of our lives and societies.