Hii Dunia

In the two decades since the collapse of the Cold War, Global Civil Society (GCS), freed from theoretical and practical confines, has increasingly staked out a larger position in respect to the creation and distribution of global public health policy and particularly infectious diseases. For example, elements of GCS highlighted the severity and complexity of the developing HIV/AIDS epidemic to the international community well before states stated to actively engage the issue at the end of the 1990s. Accordingly, GCS proponents claimed victory in 2001, when states, via the World Trade Organization (WTO), started to re-examine Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the distribution of generic drugs to the poorest states. However, the role of GCS in ultimately changing the TRIPS agenda in this specific area is decidedly more complex.

Analysis by Daniel Drezner, Associate Professor of International Politics at Tufts University, suggests that the influence GCS with respect to generic drugs is more complicated than its proponents admit. Drezner notes that the “data suggest that global civil society did have some casual effect on great power foreign policies and the changes to the TRIPS regime with regard to public health”. He, though, continues by stating that the influence of GCS is overstated and the “key to the U.S. policy shift (as well as other states) was less the GCS campaign than the viewing of HIV/AIDS though a national security lens”. For Drezner, the cumulative contributions from non-governmental organisations (NGO) and other non-state actors must be conceptualised through state-based frameworks; with GCS being one contributory element in the evolution of the TRIPS and generic drugs agenda.

As the world health community moves toward a more comprehensive global health agenda, states and state-based institutions like the World Health Organization and WTO are still the main actors in the formation and implementation of generic drug policy. Multinational national corporations, particularly the pharmaceutical industry, another non-GCS actor, also play a critical role in driving the TRIPS agenda. Together, these actors present GCS with a formidable challenge and should at the very least give GCS proponents cause for reflection. The state and pharmaceutical industry are not simply going to allow GCS to dictate policy. The political and economic realities of TRIPS and generic drugs are such that the incorporation of GCS and its objectives into global health policy will take considerably more time and will require more realistic short-term goals.

These goals could include developing a more comprehensive policy for generic drugs aimed at less high profile (profitable and complex) diseases. In fact, some progress has been made in this area which could lead to further cooperation and increased trust between participating actors. Additionally, the TRIPS agenda could be guided by increased coordination of GCS actors such as those specifically focused on international development and foreign direct investment. This is not to imply or suggest that GCS proponents should cease aggressively pursing a comprehensive global health agenda.

Rather, GCS must more explicitly and honestly recognise that the established positions of states and the pharmaceutical industry are not simply going to vanish or dramatically retreat in the face of GCS campaigns. Further, policy progress on TRIPS and other health issues results from efforts across a range of actors that have separate, sometimes overlapping, agendas. Changing the global health agenda will require a more concerted effort by GCS to actively and constructively engage the main actors in this particular policy area.

Written by James Ricci

Princeton University Press – Daniel W. Drezner: All Politics is Global (Full article)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 31st, 2010 at 3:30 am and is filed under Article, Civil Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.