Resolved: The TRIPS agreement is unfair.

Unfortunately, my opponent's schedule was too busy, and as such, he was unable to post an argument pertaining to our resolution. He resorted to copying from an external source which did not directly address the motion or my arguments. As such, I will not respond to his post, and instead await eagerly his arguments in the next round. However, I will take this opportunity to post my two other contentions.C5) TRIPS further perpetrates unfairness in the agriculture industry.TRIPS renders obligatory the provision of patents not only for medicines, but also for micro-organisms, and non-biological and microbiological processes for the production of plants or animals, as well as plant varieties. (7) This includes genes, microorganisms, cell lines and genomes. (1) As a result, chemical companies have purchased seed and biotechnology companies, and become life science companies. For example, Monsanto, a corporation that admits its involvement in drafting TRIPS, now owns Calgene, Holden and Asgrow, Cargill Seeds, Agracetus, DeKalb, Delta and Pine Land and Seminis. Other corporations, including Novartis (which, incidentally, was involved in the medicine-related lawsuits against both South Africa and India) and Aventis, have also done this. (2) However, this opens a can of worms, and further worsens injustice in the agriculture industry.There are several ways in this unfortunate situation manifests itself in developing nations. The first is biopiracy. TRIPS encourages biopiracy, which means indigenous knowledge and biodiversity from developing nations are stolen by multinationals which patent the genes and create a monopoly on these genes. As such, biological resources which originate from developing nations can no longer be used by small producers there, depriving them of their ability to sustain their own lives. For instance, through TRIPS, the US forced India to change patent laws, which allowed firms engaging in biodiversity to enjoy monopoly power in India. The Indian variety of Nap Hal wheat, for example, was patented by Monsanto before a court decision revoked the patent in 2004. Karela, jamun and brinjal also have anti-diabetic properties which were patented by the US, but these are in fact common everyday knowledge in the parts of India where they originate. These are not individual cases. Neem, pepper, haldi, harar, mustar, amla, bahera, etc., are just examples of the Indian crops that have fallen victim to this injustice. Systemetic biopiracy caused by TRIPS results in a flow of innovation from developing countries to developed ones, which then proceed to patent and protect such stolen inventions for monopoly gain. This is unfair to developing countries. (2)Moreover, the practice of seed saving, used by some 70% of the farmers in India, has become illegal under TRIPS. Once the farmers have tried using GMO seeds, subsequent seeds must be bought from multinational agricultural companies at lofty prices. In fact, even their non-GMO crops are hit because they will be contaminated by their GMO crops, and consequently contain GMO elements. Therefore, TRIPS patents allow seed corporations to have control over seeds and therefore the production of the entire farm (including GMO and originally non-GMO crops). Farmers unable to afford the expensive seeds will be unable to produce. As of 2006, this has pushed 150,000 farmers in India to suicide. Cotton seeds in India are a notorious example of this. 95% of these seeds are controlled by Monsanto. (6) Even farmers in developed nations are not free from this misery: Percy Schmeiser, a Canadian farmer, learnt this the hard way. (7) This is extremely unfair to farmers since international seed companies can reap profits from GMO seeds by setting extremely unfairly high prices (see my monopoly graphs in C1, except this time the CS belongs to the small produces rather than the consumers). Combined with biopiracy (which I've mentioned above), this phenomenon can even extend from GMOs to conventional crops. (6)C6) Medical patents disincentivise the invention and production of drugs for diseases of povertyAlthough patents may incentivise the production of drugs for patients in developed countries, the same cannot be said of those of developing countries. Citizens of poor countries often suffer from what is known as 'diseases of poverty', diseases which are either native to developing countries and unlikely to be found in developed ones, or which are rare in developed countries because of factors like hygiene and vaccination. Tropical diseases are examples of these. However, between 1975 and 1997, 1,233 drugs were licensed, of which only four were aimed at tropical diseases, which is extremely disproportionate. (3) The reason is that patent medicines cannot be afforded by the poor, so inventing medicine to illnesses that primarily infect the poor is not profitable.Even if medicines have been developed, patent protection does little to incentivise the production of them. After all, if the poor cannot afford to buy expensive patent medicine, why produce them? This was, at one point, the situation of Vaniqa, which was used to treat sleeping sickness, a serious African illness causing madness and death. Aventis, which held the patent to the drug, was unwilling to mass-produce it because it was not profitable. Only when the drug was later discovered to be helpful in reducing facial hair growth - for patients of developed countries! - did mass production resume, and even so, intervention by the World Health Organisation and Medecins sans frontières was needed to ensure that the sleeping sickness version would be made and sold to Africa. (4)As there is less medicine available to treat diseases of poverty, we can conclude that the poor - people with worse hygiene, less vaccinations and thus a higher chance of contracting illnesses - have less access to the rich, which already have better health and a lower chance of contracting diseases. This is satisfies the Inverse Care Law, and it is unfair as access to medical care is inversely related to needs. (5)(1) http://www.i-sis.org.uk...(2) http://ojs.c3sl.ufpr.br...(3) http://courses.cs.washington.edu...(4) http://www.nytimes.com...(5) http://www.thelancet.com...(6) http://www.globalresearch.ca...(7) http://seedfreedom.info... (8) https://www.wto.org...