Attached are KEI’s February 6 comments to USTR on the 2015 Special 301.
Our 7 page submission begins with this:
The annual Special 301 process begins with the assumption that the most important challenge is to identify and rank governments on the basis of how much pressure is justified to accommodate the demands of various copyright, patent holder and pharmaceutical companies. The submissions by the right holders are relatively unburdened with obligations justify the policies they promote – only to identify a well articulated wish list of policy changes, and to spell the names of the countries.
Often USTR appears to take as a given that right-holder lobby groups have interests consistent with the public interest, or at least, the interests of US citizens as a whole. Suggesting the contrary is evidence that access to knowledge and knowledge goods is more important to the U.S. economy. We are also concerned about fairness and the welfare of persons with lower incomes.
Our submission will briefly touch on some of the evidence to support our view that the USTR trade policy is harming the national interest, slowing economic growth, undermining accountability, and contributing to unfair outcomes as regards access to medical technologies. We will begin with a discussion regarding medical technologies, and close with comments about copyright policy.
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