Citizen-based agenda.

Citizen movements organizing across national borders are increasingly a key factor in reshaping global affairs policy at both the national and international levels. To further its own mission to reform U.S. foreign policy--"making it a more responsible global partner and global leader"--Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) is committed to strengthening and advancing citizen movements concerned with global affairs. As part of that effort, we are drafting profiles of many of the most prominent citizen-based global affairs agendas.

Democratizing Access to Essential Medicines

Two factors--the rapid spread of the HIV virus throughout Africa and new efforts by pharmaceutical companies to enforce patent laws through free trade rules--have combined to fuel a new international campaign to increase access to essential, lifesaving medications by developing countries and the world's poor. The movement, which brings together Africa policy institutions, trade reform groups, consumer groups, and public health organizations, demands more balanced policies regarding pharmaceutical patent and trade rules by governments and multilateral organizations. These groups point out that more than 90% of all death and suffering from infectious diseases occurs in the developing world and that 20% of the world's population uses 80% of manufactured medicines. The main argument is that public health policy should not be held hostage to market forces and on restrictive patent laws. With respect to trade and patent laws, citizen groups advocate: less-restrictive interpretations of the new Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS), creation of a working group within the World Trade Organization (WTO) that provides a public health framework for rulings on key features of WTO agreements, and policy reforms by the U.S. and other governments that institute legal forms of relief from patent restrictions on lifesaving medicines. To address the AIDS crisis and the spread of infectious diseases, citizen groups advocate increasing funds for health care research and pressuring governments to require pharmaceutical firms to reinvest a larger percentage of their profits into R&D for treatment of communicable diseases through vaccines and medicines. With the AIDS crisis devastating impoverished Africa, citizen groups have succeeded in making access to essential, lifesaving medicines a major global affairs issue--one that challenges the dictates of unmitigated free trade and the power of the world's largest pharmaceutical firms.

--FPIF Editors