Trips in India
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TRIPs in India An analysis of the impact of global governance on political processes in India and the wider institutional settings for the pharmaceutical industry Rasmus Alex Wendt Ph. D. thesis Roskilde University December 2007 2 TRIPs in India An analysis of the impact of global governance on political processes in India and the wider institutional settings for the pharmaceutical industry Ph.D. thesis by Rasmus Alex Wendt International Development Studies Roskilde University December 2007 3 Supervisior: Henrik Søborg took over the responsibility of supervising when John Degnbol-Martinussen unexpectedly died in 2002, both International Development Studies, Roskilde University Financial support: International Development Studies, Roskilde University has granted a three year stipendium, the Danish Council for Development Research has funded fieldwork in India in 2000 and 2001 4 To Frederikke, Ella and Trine And in memory of Moses, who will never finalise his thesis 5 6 Acknowledgements TRIPs in India has been a prolonged process; not only the political process in India as it will clearly appear in this thesis, but also finalising the thesis. Not least therefore I would like to take this opportunity to thank my family, for patience, support, tolerance and not least concrete help. Without this support this thesis would never had been finalised. I would also like to thank my supervisor Henrik Søborg who took over when my previous supervisor John Degnbol-Martinussen died unexpectedly in 2002. Henrik took over a huge work steering this thesis to an end, and I am grateful for the support rendered to me in this process. Moreover, I would like to thank my colleagues at International Development Studies (IDS) for their help and support; I have had many fruitful discussions with the GlobAsia research team. Finally I would like to thank my many students at IDS, whom I have enjoyed supervising and from whom I have learned a lot. With this thesis I have touched new academic ground compared with my educational background as an economic geographer. When finalising my master dissertation, one of the analytical areas which then seemed to have played an enormous importance for understanding economic and institutional development, was developing and defining analytical tools and concepts for the analysis of the political and policy processes. Therefore I was easily persuaded by my late supervisor John Degnbol-Martinussen to incorporate political analysis of the how the TRIPs agreement was implemented in India and the responses to WTO regulation. This has been a challenge and caused frustrations; however in the end rewarding and a worth-while process. It is my hope that the quality of the political analysis can compare with the standards in similar studies and contribute to a better understanding of what is called global governance. Michala Bendixen has lay-outed the graphic illustrations of the models in this thesis. Ranjana Das has helped me during my fieldwork in India; I owe my thanks to both of them. 7 CONTENT Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................................... 12 Prologue ............................................................................................................................................. 18 Chapter 1 Analytical focus point ....................................................................................................... 21 Case ............................................................................................................................................ 21 Research issues .............................................................................................................................. 22 Structure ..................................................................................................................................... 23 Methodology .................................................................................................................................. 24 Research strategy ....................................................................................................................... 25 Theoretical approach .................................................................................................................. 26 State theory ................................................................................................................................ 27 Institutional change processes .................................................................................................... 29 Working hypotheses ....................................................................................................................... 30 Analytical perspectives in the research ...................................................................................... 30 Data collection ............................................................................................................................... 31 Chapter 2 From GATT to the WTO................................................................................................... 35 The ITO .......................................................................................................................................... 35 The emergence of GATT ........................................................................................................... 36 Results of the Trade Rounds .......................................................................................................... 36 The Part IV-text ......................................................................................................................... 37 The Uruguay Round ....................................................................................................................... 38 The WTO ....................................................................................................................................... 39 GATT 1994 .................................................................................................................................... 40 Organisation and Structure......................................................................................................... 41 Agreements in the WTO ................................................................................................................ 42 Trade in Services - GATS .......................................................................................................... 42 TRIMs ........................................................................................................................................ 42 The “New issues” in WTO ......................................................................................................... 43 The TRIPs agreement..................................................................................................................... 44 Transfer of technology ............................................................................................................... 45 Chapter 3 The pharmaceutical industry in India ................................................................................ 46 Historical background .................................................................................................................... 46 Pre-independence period ............................................................................................................ 46 Post-independence period .......................................................................................................... 47 1970 patent legislation ................................................................................................................... 48 The structure of the national pharmaceutical industry in India ..................................................... 49 Product portfolio ............................................................................................................................ 51 Chapter 4 Global Economic Change Processes ................................................................................. 54 The debate on globalisation ........................................................................................................... 54 A globalised world ? .................................................................................................................. 55 What’s new? ............................................................................................................................... 58 Is globalisation real, global and new? ........................................................................................ 60 Global Governance Organisations ................................................................................................. 61 Asymmetric power relations ...................................................................................................... 62 Global governance and political conflicts .................................................................................. 63 Concluding remarks on Global Economic Change processes ....................................................... 63 8 Chapter 5 A redefined Role for the State? ........................................................................................ 65 The State as an important actor ...................................................................................................... 65 The “society of States” ..................................................................................................................