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Duration- 5 days
Venue- Conference Hall, IIFT, New Delhi
Total number of participants: 33
Total number of sessions: 21
Total number resource persons: 23
The School on Trade and Public Health organized by Centre for Trade and Development (Centad), in collaboration with Centre for WTO Studies-Indian Institute Foreign Trade (IIFT), commenced on 5th October at IIFT campus, New Delhi. The five-day school which was meant to facilitate information sharing and discussions on trade policies and public health interface was inaugurated by Mr. K.T. Chacko, Director of Indian Institute of Foreign Trade. Trade policy experts such as Prof. R.S. Ratna, Prof. Madhukar Sinha, Linu Mathew Philip, and Prof. Shashank Priya spoke on the occasion. While addressing the students, Mr. K.T. Chacko spoke about trade policies and implications on welfare effects. He also mentioned about the GATS negotiations and its possible negative impacts on migration of health professionals. Issues of ethics in trading and access to medicines is the another issue he commented upon.
The school was organized with the objectives of 1) addressing a range of issues and develop a holistic understanding on how the global trade regime impacts public health 2) developing an understanding of how trade impacts access to health services, medicines and medical technology 3) elucidating the relationship between the multilateral trade regime and international institutions setting substantive health and intellectual property rights standards 4) examining how regional and bilateral trade agreements impact public health 5) examining how the pharmaceutical innovation ecosystem operates and its relationship with IPRs 6) examining the accountability mechanisms in the global regimes on trade and public health and 7) examining various flexibilities in international trade policies.
Selected post-graduate students of law, social medicine/public health, journalism, social work, economics, political science and development studies, researchers, activists and journalists from different parts of India attended the School. Trade and public health experts from India and abroad facilitated the sessions. Since the school was envisaged as capacity building programme, there was no fee charged from participants. Further, all expenses related to travel, lodging and boarding were met by Centad.
The five day long intensive school on trade and public health ended with a panel discussion on 9th October 2009 at 4:15 pm on the topic “Universal Public-Health Aspirations and the Current Intellectual Property Regime in India: Is there Scope for Synergy?”. The panelists of the discussion were Prof. Biswajit Dhar, Director General, RIS, New Delhi and Ms. Rajeshwari, KNS Partners, New Delhi. The discussion was moderated by Prof. Madhukar Sinha. Prof. Dhar argued that there is sufficient evidence to the effect patent protection leads to prohibitive pricing of pharmaceutical which has serious implication access and affordability of medicines. Responding to this point, Ms. Rajeshwari argued that the patent regime should not discredited for all problems related to access and affordability of medicines since much of it is on account of structural problems in the public health system in India. She also argued that there were enough safeguards with and outside the patent regime to control higher prices. Panel discussion was followed by a question and answer session.
In the valedictory function, Yogesh Pai presented a summary of proceedings and also elicited the feedback from students. The overall feedback was positive and students noted that this unique programme is one of its kind in India and should be organized every year, if possible in different parts of India. Thereafter, H.E Ambassador Edwin Laurent, Head to Trade Section, Commonwealth Secretariat, London addressed the students. In his valedictory address he said that trade and public health was a crucial issue and such capacity building programmes are important to have informed discussions and deliberations. He also hoped that such capacity building programme would contribute to the policy making process in the future. Along with Ambassador Edwin Laurent, Mr. KT Chacko, and Mr. Linu Mathew Philip distributed the certificates to the participants of the School. In the end, Prof.Ratna delivered the vote of thanks.
Course Coordinators
Yogesh Pai and Santhosh MR, Centad, New Delhi
Click here to view Course Curriculum
Click here to view Presentations
Click here to view List of Participants
Click here to view List of Resource Persons
Special Acknowledgements
Mr. Veer Mayank, PhD candidate, Centre for International Legal Studies, JNU, New Delhi
Centad-IIFT programme Staff
Centad’s Trade and Public Health Programme is supported by a grant from Foundation Open Society Institute (Zug), Switzerland.
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